Lady Burton's Arabian Nights

Sir Richard Francis Burton, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (1821–1890) "was a British explorer, scholar and soldier. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke twenty-nine European, Asian, and African languages." Or at least so says the Fount of All Knowledge.

He disguised himself as a Muslim pilgrim to travel to Mecca; he accompanied Speke in the exploration of the Great African Lakes; he labored with love and dedication to give English speaking readers faithful translations of the One Thousand and One Nights and the Perfumed Garden; and he redacted and printed Bhagwan Lal Indraji's translation of the Kama Sutra.

Westward the sun sinks, grave and glad; but far eastward, with laughter and tempestuous tears, cloud, rain, and splendour as of Orient spears, keen as the sea's thrill toward a kindling star, the sundawn breaks the barren twilight's bar and fires the mist and slays it. Years on years vanish, but he that hearkens eastward hears bright music from the world where shadows are.
Where shadows are not shadows. Hand in hand a man's word bids them rise and smile and stand and triumph. All that glorious Orient glows defiant of the dusk. Our twilight land trembles; but all the heaven is all one rose, whence laughing love dissolves her frosts and snows. (Algernon Charles Swinburne, To Richard F. Burton on His Translation of the Arabian Nights, 1886)

His wife Isabel was an extraordinary woman, who supported her husband and accompanied him in some of his travels in the Orient. What is of interest to this blog is that she commissioned Justin Huntly McCarthy, a writer, a poet, and a Member of Parliament, to arrange her husband's earthly translation of the Arabian Nights "for household reading". The resulting work is Lady Burton's Edition of Her Husband's Arabian Nights; it was published in London in 1886, and, in the wonderful world of the world-wide web, it is available at Archive.org  in six volumes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

To the women of England I dedicate this edition of the Arabian Nights believing that the majority can appreciate fine language, exquisite poetry, and romantic eastern life, just as well as the thousand students and scholars who secured the original thousand copies. (Isabel Burton)

The sample text used on this blog to illustrate how different nibs lay down different inks on different papers is taked from the story of the Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad, volume 1, pp. 73 sqq. The title page picture is available on Flickr, as are all the illustrations on this blog; or at least almost all of them.