As an instance of the extreme looseness with which the book was edited, I may observe that the first four Vols. were published without tables of contents, which were afterwards appended en bloc to the fifth Volume.  The state of corruption and incoherence in which the printed Text was placed before the public by the two learned Editors, who were responsible for its production, is such as might well drive a translator to despair:  the uncorrected errors of the press would alone fill a volume and the verse especially is so corrupt that one of the most laborious of English Arabic scholars pronounced its translation a hopeless task.  I have not, however, in any single instance, allowed myself to be discouraged by the difficulties presented by the condition of the text, but have, to the best of my ability, rendered into English, without abridgment or retrenchment, the whole of the tales, prose and verse, contained in the Breslau Edition, which are not found in those of Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac.  In this somewhat ungrateful task, I have again had the cordial assistance of Captain Burton, who has (as in the case of my “Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night”) been kind enough to look over the proofs of my translation and to whom I beg once more to tender my warmest thanks.

Some misconception seems to exist as to the story of Seif dhoul Yezen, a fragment of which was translated by Dr. Habicht and included, with a number of tales from the Breslau Text, in the fourteenth Vol. of the extraordinary gallimaufry published by him in 1824-5 as a complete translation of the 1001 Nights[FN#224] and it has, under the mistaken impression that this long but interesting Romance forms part of the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, been suggested that a complete translation of it should be included in the present publication.  The Romance in question does not, however, in any way, belong to my original and forms no part of the Breslau Text, as will be at once apparent from an examination of the Table of Contents of the latter (see post, p. 261), by which all the Nights are accounted for.  Dr. Habicht himself tells us, in his preface to the first Vol. of the Arabic Text, that he found the fragment (undivided into Nights) at the end of the fifth Volume of his Ms., into which other detached tales, having no connection with the Nights, appear to have also found their way.  This being the case, it is evident that the Romance of Seif dhoul Yezen in no way comes within the scope of the present work and would (apart from the fact that its length would far overpass my limits) be a manifestly improper addition to it.  It is, however, possible that, should I come across a suitable text of the work, I may make it the subject of a separate publication; but this is, of course, a matter for future consideration.

Table of contents of the Calcutta (1839-42)
and Boulac editions of the Arabic text of
the book of the thousand nights and one
night.