THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT (10 VOLUMES, COMPLETE) PLUS SUPPLEMENTAL NIGHTS (7 VOLUMES). LIMITED, NUMBERED "MECCA" EDITION 16/1000; (A PLAIN AND LITERAL TRANSLATION OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS NOW ENTITULED THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT)

Boston, Mass: The Burton Club (For Private Subscribers Only), 1905. Mecca Edition, Limited to 1000 numbered sets. Hardcover. Good Only. Octavos. NOTE: READING COPY only. Not pretty, but full of fascinating stories, meticulously collected by the swashbuckling, larger-than-life Burton. Beige cloth over boards, with paper spine labels, titled in red and black. Many photogravures from etchings, drawings and paintings, tissue-guarded,. All titles in red and black. Handy with book repair? Some boards are loose, hinges giving way, and in need of reinforcement and repair, if desired. Volume I of the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night shows a split in the cloth adjacent to the spine. Most volumes intact, but in need of gentle care. Hence the price. "a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age (8th 13th centuries) - by the British explorer and Arabist Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890). It stands as the only complete translation of the Macnaghten or Calcutta II edition (Egyptian recension) of the "Arabian Nights". Burton's translation was one of two unabridged and unexpurgated English translations done in the 1880s; the first was by John Payne, under the title The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (1882-1884, nine volumes). Burton's ten volume version was published almost immediately afterward with a slightly different title. This, along with the fact that Burton closely advised Payne and partially based his books on Payne's, led later to charges of plagiarism. Owing to the sexual imagery in the source texts (which Burton made a special study of, adding extensive footnotes and appendices on Oriental sexual mores) and to the strict Victorian laws on obscene material, both translations were printed as private editions for subscribers only, rather than being published in the usual manner. Burton's original ten volumes were followed by a further seven entitled The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night (1886-1888). Burton's 17 volumes, while boasting many prominent admirers, have been criticised for their "archaic language and extravagant idiom" and "obsessive focus on sexuality";"