Monday, January 26, 2009

Updates:





June 22, 2021:

This post about Henry Whitelock Torrens's incomplete 1838 translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night includes links to free online texts of his principal works.



Henry Torrens (1806-1852)




June 8, 2021:

This post about Arabist Salvador Peña Martín's new translation of the Mil y una Noches includes all the details I could uncover about the other Spanish versions of the Nights.



Salvador Peña Martín: Mil y una noches (2016)




May 11, 2021:

This is a post about English poet John Payne's pioneering translation of the Nights, published in full with various other Eastern works in the 15-volume 1901 compilation Oriental Tales, edited by Leonard C. Smithers.



John Payne (1906)




February, 2017:

An interview with celebrated Sikh / Canadian writer Jaspreet Singh on my Arabian Nights book collection, and the single bookcase (most of) it is housed in.



Bronwyn Lloyd: Arabian Nights bookcase (3/2/17)




October, 2016:

My new Massey University Creative Writing course, 139.329: Advanced Fiction Writing, uses the 1001 Nights as a paradigm to help students explore a variety of approaches to writing stories. Major topics include: The Fantastic, Magic Realism, Metafiction, Collage & Cut-ups, and New Wave SF. Let's hope it's as much fun to teach as it has been putting it all together!



Gustave Doré: Sinbad the Sailor (1865)




August, 2013:

My series of seven blogposts entitled "The True History of the Novel" began with one on The Eastern Frame-Story, which was the starting point for my argument against the orthodox view that the "true" novel began in the eighteenth century with Richardson and Fielding. Since then, of course, Steven Moore's two-volume The Novel: An Alternate History (2010-13) has dealt a decisive bodyblow to that theory.





June, 2013:

Some further notes on Richard F. Burton, and his celebrated translation of the Arabian Nights, with a bibliography.



Sir Frederick Leighton: Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)




February, 2013:

My new entry about Craig Thompson's recent graphic novel Habibi, on the Acquisitions page of my bibliography blog A Gentle Madness sees his work as justified within the genre it inhabits, rejecting the accusations of "self-conscious Orientalism" which some have levelled against his work.



Craig Thompson: Habibi (2011)




December, 2010:

My new post, "How do you make a single-volumed Arabian Nights?" is an attempt to sum up the various attempts made to date, together with my own suggestion for an updated Portable Arabian Nights.


Joseph Campbell, ed.: The Portable Arabian Nights (1952)




July, 2009:

The post I've put up here, "Orientalism and its Enemies, or The Empire Strikes Back," is a reaction to reading Robert Irwin's latest book For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies. To put it mildly, I don't find his attack on Edward Said's classic text Orientalism particularly cogent or convincing.



Robert Irwin: For Lust of Knowing (2006)




February, 2009:

I've been meaning for quite some time to do a post on the various Arabian Nights comics, gamebooks & other oddities I've collected to date. The seven I list here range from classic Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge comics from the 50s to the latest Korean "manhwa" versions.






December, 2008:

The appearance of Malcolm (& Ursula) Lyons' complete, 3-volume complete translation of the 1001 Nights in the Penguin Classics is a milestone in the history of the collection in English. I've written a review of it here.







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