Before You Begin

Before you begin.

This compact gathering moves through Baghdad's courtly appetite for stories, judgments and marvels. A restless caliph asks to be amused; a wallet becomes a universe of comic impossibilities; legal ingenuity solves one problem and exposes another; a false confession protects honour; and generosity becomes its own form of power.

At the center stands Abu Mohammed Lazybones, an idle merchant's son whose reputation cannot contain the scale of his adventure. His tale opens from ordinary commerce into shorelines, jinn, hidden chambers and restored honour, then returns the collection to the Abbasid world of patrons, poets, governors and scholars.

The illustrations follow the approved illuminated manuscript style for this volume: courtly, pictorial, rich in lapis and gold, but careful with clarity. Character sheets, profiles, studies, maps, connections, scenes, recaps and symbolic medallions are built as a reader's companion to the text rather than a replacement for it.