Tales from the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night

A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments

By: Richard Francis Burton

Narrated by: Kevin Foley

Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Bawdy and exotic, Tales from the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night features the wily, seductive Scheherazade, who saves her own life by telling tales of magical transformation, genies and wishes, flying carpets and fantastical journeys, terror and passion to entertain and appease the brutal King Shahryar. First introduced in the West in 1704, the stories of "The Thousand and One Nights" are most familiar to American readers in sanitized children's versions. This modern edition, culled from the first three volumes of Richard F. Burton's famous ten-volume translation, restores the sensuality and lushness of the original Arabic. Intricate and imaginative, these stories continue to captivate audiences as they have for centuries.

The following stories can be found in this audiobook: "Tale of the Bull and the Ass", "Tale of the Trader and the Jinni", "The First Shaykh's Story", "The Second Shaykh's Story", "The Third Shaykh's Story", "The Fisherman and the Jinni", "The Tale of the Wazir and the Sage Duban", "King Sindibad and his Falcon", "The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot", "The Tale of the Prince and the Ogress", "The Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince", "The Tale of the Three Apples", "The Hunchback's Tale", "The Nazarene Broker's Story", "The Reeve's Tale", "The Tale of the Jewish Doctor", "The Tale of the Tailor", "The Barber's Tale of Himself", "The Barber's Tale of His First Brother", "The Barber's Tale of His Second Brother", "The Barber's Tale of His Third Brother", "The Barber's Tale of His Fourth Brother", "The Barber's Tale of His Fifth Brother", "The Barber's Tale of His Sixth Brother", "The End of the Tailor's Tale", "Nur Al-Din Ali and the Damsel Anis Al-Jalis", "The Birds and Beasts and the Carpenter", "The Hermits", and "Tale of the Water Fowl and the Tortoise".

Public Domain (P)2011 Tantor

Beauty and enlightening.

Wonderful engaging stories revealing attitudes of cultures and learning stories of the wise. I did not want it to end

Really cool

These stories fascinate me because they’re ancient and the authors translation was done over a hundred years ago so it’s really cool to enjoy a sort of elegance in the language it’s even challenging and complex to cipher the ancient cadence of storytelling because although English the vernacular is waay different I also enjoy this almost unabridged version
If you want watered down easy listening versions of the stories this book is not for you if want the full effect then sit back and relax

The stories were but,,,

What really irritated me and got on my nerves is the amount of racist comments and remarks in this book. Every time a woman committed a sultry it was a blacked skinned whatever. I began to wonder if it was from the original story or if it was translated or written that way by the white man who published it in English. It made the stories unsettling and almost unlistenable!

Worth the exposure of ancient story telling

I was curious of Arabian folk lore. It was hard to finish the various story lines. I was curious of reported sexual topics or practices mentioned by historians. This book had very little sexualization of any scenes that would offend most modern readers. The knowledge I gained was the sexist or enslavement of females to satisfy the needs of men. The reader did an excellent. I don't plan to try any future readings on this book. Like learning Geometry to learn mathematical proofs, once was enough to fill that square of exposure.

nice read

I enjoyed this book very much. hopefully the additional volumes will soon be available too

Awful reader

It takes a special talent to take one of the world’s best stories and make it repugnant. What a pity.

Got a good laugh out of it.

I knew next to nothing about these stories except the most shallow surface level cultural osmosis understanding. Given the old fashioned diction and the tone of the narrator I was kind of expecting a snooze fest but boy was I wrong. This was about 200 times more racist and sexist than I could have expected and I loved it, solid entertainment through and through in a dark humor sort of way. Glad I exposed myself to this, though I wouldn’t blame anyone in the slightest for being offended by 90% of the stories here, they contain some pretty inexcusably vile depictions of black people specifically and women, though they do have the decency of ragging in pretty much all non-Muslims in some way or another so at least they cover their bases.

Terrible narration

For me, listening to an audio book all boils down to the narration. If the narrator is flat and toneless, I can't enjoy the story no matter how interesting it may be in and of itself. That being said, this narrator is the worst I have heard! His diction is flat and his meter is so obvious I felt like I was riding a roller coaster. Instead of enjoying the story I found myself distract by his up, down, up, down droning. I was thoroughly dissappointed, especially because I was looking very forward to these stories.

very difficult to listen

I couldn't finish the firs chapter, its like listening to a robot, very difficult to keep up.

Needs a new recording

I couldn’t get through the first few chapters because the voice just didn’t catch me. I’m not sure if the recording is old or what but I couldn’t keep going because of the recording.