Robert Irwin
The Arabian Nights: A Companion.
The Penguin Press, 1994. 0713991054   344 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 6.75" x 9.75", is bound in black cloth, with stamped gilt lettering. Book and dust jacket are in excellent condition.
"The Arabian Nights: A Companion" guides the reader into this labyrinth of storytelling. It traces the development of the stories from prehistoric India and Pharaonic Egypt to modern times. It explores the history of the translation, and explains the ways in which its contents have been added to, plagiarized and imitated. Above all, the "Companion" uses the stories as a guide to the social history and the counter-culture of the medieval Near East and the world of the storyteller, the snake-charmer, the burglar, the sorcerer, the drug-addict, the treasure hunter and the adulterer."