Before You Begin

Before you begin.

A porter follows a woman through the markets of Baghdad, collecting fruit, flowers, food and fragrant waters. At the end of the errand stands a magnificent house, three hospitable sisters and a condition: the guest must not ask about what does not concern him. The basket can be put down; curiosity is harder to set aside.

The anonymous storytellers of the Thousand Nights and a Night make this house a meeting place for travellers and for tales. A change of speaker may carry you from a city street to an unfamiliar shore, while Shahrazad's night-to-night telling keeps the larger conversation alive. This edition preserves Richard F. Burton's 1885 translation and arrangement, including its historical language and its troubling assumptions.

Read the cycle as one continuous visit. The ten reading units provide resting places; the Kalandars' accounts and the stories of the women remain parts of the same unfolding encounter. Notice who asks a question, who sets a condition, and who is allowed time to speak.

The illustrated gallery offers portraits, places and material details to accompany that journey. Recaps become available after their reading units, and optional Story Medallions offer a brief question or echo after its supporting passage. The historical text remains the centre of the edition.

For adult readers: the text contains explicit sexuality, incest, coercion, enslavement, violence and mutilation, animal cruelty, death involving a minor, and discriminatory historical language. These representations are preserved without endorsement; the artwork does not reproduce explicit acts or graphic suffering.