Before You Begin

Before you begin.

This illustrated edition gathers nine brief and glittering tales from Burton's Thousand Nights and a Night: stories of gifts, witty answers, strange cities, sudden reversals and courtly generosity.

The sequence begins with Hatim of Tayy, whose hospitality is so complete that it seems to continue after death. From there the book passes through warriors, caliphs, shepherds, musicians, ruined cities and comic reversals. The tales are short, but their world is wide: desert roads, hunting grounds, locked towers, Baghdadi rooms, pilgrimage crowds and the dream of many-columned Iram.

The visual companion keeps the original text intact and adds character plates, world maps, connections, scenes, recap pages and symbolic medallions to help the reader move through this compact treasury of generosity and adventure.