Before You Begin

Before you begin.

A court commission begins this tale, but its true force gathers inside a household. Anis al-Jalis arrives in Bassorah renowned for beauty, learning, music, and wit. Nur al-Din Ali, the generous son of the Wazir charged with bringing her to the King, meets not an emblem of royal luxury but a person whose intelligence and loyalty will shape every turn that follows.

The story moves with the speed of oral narrative: privilege becomes grief, abundance becomes need, and a river journey opens into Baghdad after dark. Burton's English keeps the performance visible—formal greetings, sudden poems, comic reversals, and Shahrazad's dawn interruptions all remain part of the reading experience.

This edition treats the language of purchase and enslavement as part of the historical tale, not as a romance of the institution. Its illustrations centre the characters' dignity and agency while retaining the story's courtly, comic, and adventurous energies.

The gallery that follows introduces the cast, the two cities, and the objects that carry power from one hand to another: a lute, a purse, a key, and above all a sealed letter. Then the tale begins in Bassorah, where two rival Wazirs receive the same royal command very differently.