SOURCE: Grotzfeld, Heinz. “Neglected Conclusions of the Arabian Nights.” Journal of Arabic Literature 16 (1985): 73-87.

In the following essay, Grotzfeld asserts that a careful study of noncanonical materials associated with The Arabian Nights can shed important light on the history of the collection.

Certainly no other work of Arabic literature has become so universally known in the West as the Stories of Thousand and One Nights, more commonly called The Arabian Nights' Entertainments or simply The Arabian Nights. Since their first appearance in Europe (Galland's French translation 1704 sqq.; English and German translations of Galland only a few years later), the Nights met with lively interest from a large public. In the latter part of the 18th century, this interest generated something like a run on manuscripts of the Nights, especially in the English world, as is documented by the relatively large number of Arabic MSS of the Nights that...