Several editions of the original work, edited by Messrs. E. S. and S. L. Poole, have appeared at intervals from 1859 to 1882.  They differ little from the original edition except in their slightly smaller size.

The short tales included in Lane’s notes were published separately as one of Knight’s Weekly Volumes, in 1845, under the title of “Arabian Tales and Anecdotes, being a selection from the notes to the new translation of the Thousand and One Nights, by E. W. Lane, Esq.”

Finally, in 1883, Mr. Stanley Lane Poole published a classified and arranged edition of Lane’s notes under the title of “Arabian Society in the Middle Ages.”

Mr. John Payne’s version of the Mac. edition was issued in 9 vols. by the Villon Society to subscribers only.  It appeared from 1882 to 1884, and only 500 copies were printed.  Judging from the original prospectus, it seems to have been the author’s intention to have completed the work in 8 vols., and to have devoted vol. 9 to Galland’s doubtful tales; but as they are omitted, he must have found that the work ran to a greater length than he had anticipated, and that space failed him.  He published some preliminary papers on the Nights in the New Quarterly Magazine for January and April, 1879.

Mr. Payne subsequently issued “Tales from the Arabic of the Breslau and Calcutta (1814-18) editions of the Thousand Nights and One Night, not occurring in the other printed texts of the work.” (Three vols., London, 1884.) Of this work, issued, like the other, by the Villon Society, to subscribers only, 750 copies were printed, besides 50 on large paper.  The third volume includes indices of all the tales in the four principal printed texts.

Finally we have Sir R. F. Burton’s translation now in its entirety before his subscribers.  It is restricted to 1,000 copies. (Why not 1,001?) The five supplementary vols. are to include tales wanting in the Mac. edition, but found in other texts (printed and Ms.), while Lady Burton’s popular edition will allow of the free circulation of Sir R. F. Burton’s work among all classes of the reading public.

Collections of selected tales.

There are many volumes of selections derived from Galland, but these hardly require mention; the following may be noticed as derived from other sources: 

1.  Caliphs and Sultans, being tales omitted in the usual editions of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.  Re-written and re-arranged by Sylvanus Hanley, F. L. S., etc., London, 1868; 2nd edition 1870.

Consists of portions of tales chiefly selected from Scott, Lamb, Chavis and Cazotte, Trebutien and Lane; much abridged, and frequently strung together, as follows:—­

Nos. 246, 41, 32 (including Nos. 111, 21a, and 89); 9a (including 9aa [which Hanley seems, by the way, to have borrowed from some version which I do not recognise], 22 and 248); 155, 156, 136, 162; Xailoun the Silly (from Cazotte); 132 and 132a; and 169 (including 134 and 135x).