the first complete translation into english of the arabian nights
PAYNE, John [translator and editor]. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night: Now First Completely Done into English Prose and Verse from the Original Arabic. London: Printed for the Villon Society by Private Subscription and for Private Circulation Only. 1882-1884.
Nine volumes, small 4to. Original art vellum, ornamented and lettered in gilt, top edges gilt, others uncut; Bindings a bit darkened; bookplates of the Glasgow entrepreneur James Cowan (1828-1907), styled Jacobus Cowan de Rosshall Armigeri, inside front covers.
First edition of this translation, set 261 of of a limited edition of 500.
'John Payne was much admired in the late 19th and early 20th centuries both for his original verse and for his translations of Arabic and Persian narratives. Payne was born in 1842 and lived for most of his life in London, where he worked as a solicitor. From 1866 onwards, he moved in artistic and literary circles , meeting some of the Pre-Raphaelites, Arthur O'Shaugnessy, Swinburne, Catulle Mendes, Anatole France, Richard Burton and others. Payne's remarkable aptitude for languages enabled him to translate French, Italian Turkish, Arabic and Persian prose and verse. He never married and in later life became a recluse, dying on 15 February 1916' (John Payne Collection, online via archiveshub).
Indebted to Richard Burton who assisted, John Payne in the preface claims that this edition is 'the first complete translation of the great Arabic compendium of romantic fiction that has been attempted in any European language (I, p. vii). Indeed, Burton's translation apeared later in the 1880s.
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