‘A Bare-Faced Forgery’
[ARABIAN NIGHTS.]
Arabian Tales; or, a Continuation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. Consisting of Stories related by the Sultana of the Indies to divert her Husband from the Performance of a rash Vow … Newly translated from the original Arabic into French, by Don Chaves, a Native Arab, and M. Cazotte … London, Faulder, and Hookham and Carpenter, Egerton, Walker [and five others], 1794.
Three vols, 12mo, pp. I: viii, 232; II: [2], 338; III: [4], 268; with half-titles in vols I and III; F3 and H6–8 torn through (no loss) in vol. II, somewhat dusty and a few stains, withal a very good set; uncut, in the original half calf with marbled sides, spines numbered directly in blind and lettered in ink; sides rather rubbed, with some losses (particularly to rear of vol. III); printed label of Kettle’s Circulating Library in vol. I, pencil price of 5s (reduced to 4/6d).
Added to your basket:
Arabian Tales; or, a Continuation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. Consisting of Stories related by the Sultana of the Indies to divert her Husband from the Performance of a rash Vow … Newly translated from the original Arabic into French, by Don Chaves, a Native Arab, and M. Cazotte …
First edition of this translation of the Continuation des mille et une nuits (1788–9) by Denis Chavis and Jacques Cazotte; despite the very close similarity to the title of the translation by Robert Heron published in Edinburgh in 1792, the text here is different.
The Syrian-born Chavis had come to Paris to teach Arabic at the Bibliothèque du Roi in around 1783. At that time the Arabian Nights was known in France through the translation of Antoine Galland, which was based on the earliest extensive manuscript source, supplemented by stories from other sources such as those of Sindbad the sailor and Aladdin. Chavis concocted a ‘more complete’ manuscript which he deposited at the Library; based on Galland’s, it added two more volumes, some stories taken from other Arabic sources, some back-translated from Galland’s French. When the Swiss publisher Paul Barde asked Chavis if he had access to more Nights material, he concurred, making translations into French from his own manuscript and other sources, which were then edited by the fairy-tale writer Cazotte (who also made his own original additions) and published as part of Barde’s Cabinet des fées.
The Continuation was successful, and widely read in its English translation, but rival scholarly attempts to recreate the Nights were also in progress and the Continuation was soon pronounced a ‘bare-faced forgery’ by the Edinburgh Review. The Preface here seeks to allay some suspicions, suggesting that its editors ‘bestowed no mean degree of labour on the task of discriminating that which was original, from a cloud of Gallic interpolations’.
Provenance: with the printed label of ‘Kettle’s Circulating Library, No. 180 High Holborn’, advertising membership at 5s per quarter or two-pence per volume, as well as magazines, card and bill printing, engraving work, second-hand musical instruments, violin lessons, and music ‘for public or private Dances’. We have been unable to trace any other references to this institution.
ESTC T70116; not in Freeman, Bibliotheca Fictiva.