Favourite Tales from the Arabian Nights
(eBook)

There was once a king known for his ravenous desire and destructive passion. His rapine hunger devoured many women and left them dead with his throes of passion. King Shahryar was known for his lust, and when his eyes befell the gorgeous Scheherazade, all thought the girl was lost to his hunger. However, Scheherazade hatched a plan which imprinted her name in eternity as one of the greatest legendary storytellers of all time. She proposed telling Shahryar stories, and the curious ruler agreed, though impatient to make love to her. He listened, and as soon she had his attention, Scheherazade stopped the story, promising to continue the next night. Curious to know what happened next, the ruler left her untouched. The woman's plan continued for 1001 nights, and engulfed Shahryar in a series of stories which mixed all the magic and mystery of Arabia. These stories have entered fairy tale mythos everywhere, and brought characters as vivid as Aladdin and the Genie, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves to readers everywhere. In these stories, readers are whisked away to a land of promise, of magic carpets and turban wearing Arabs in a time long ago. Revisit the deserts of Arabia and be mystified as characters drag you into their illusions of yesteryears, night after night, for all nights to come. Night which become so magical that they seem almost Arabian. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Richard Francis Burton was an English Geographer, writer, explorer, translator, orientalist and cartographer known mainly for his translations of several eastern texts and works, including The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi and The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi. A captain in the East India Company, he was later employed by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa and later led an expedition guided by the locals to see Lake Tanganyika, becoming the first European to do so.