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Arabian Nights   /ərˈeɪbiən naɪts/   Listen
Arabian Nights

noun
1.
A collection of folktales in Arabic dating from the 10th century.  Synonyms: Arabian Nights' Entertainment, Thousand and One Nights.






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"Arabian Nights" Quotes from Famous Books



... undulating movements of the slender body and rod-like arms. It is indeed the dullest thing on earth to watch if you are unable to follow and interpret every little movement. But if you can—well! the unexpurgated version of the Arabian Nights will be as milk-and-water compared to the heady brew offered for your consumption. And the old Harrovian sitting cross-legged, upon a heap of cushions, with the smoke of the nargileh, drifting from ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... food, and to-morrow he will be again bereft of all by the fickle turns that Fortune makes in the wheel of destiny. The wildest of our romances never come up to many incidents that have occurred in their own mine; and when they attempt fiction, it is on the pattern of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. I do verily believe that all that class of Arabian tales are but the reproduction of the romances ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... iv. pp. 134-189, Nights cclxxii.-ccxci. This is the story familiar to readers of the old "Arabian Nights" as "Abon Hassan, or the Sleeper Awakened" and is the only one of the eleven tales added by Galland to his version of the (incomplete) MS. of the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night procured by him from Syria, the Arabic original of which has ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... refreshing! Then, my precious child, the fun of it is that nobody knows who these Veneerings are, and that they know nobody, and that they have a house out of the Tales of the Genii, and give dinners out of the Arabian Nights. Curious to see 'em, my dear? Say you'll know 'em. Come and dine with 'em. They shan't bore you. Say who shall meet you. We'll make up a party of our own, and I'll engage that they shall not interfere with you for one single moment. You really ought to see their gold ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... in the "Arabian Nights" who inhabited a secret den in a forest, the gate of which would open only to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... grotesque and wild to Dick. It was like a passage out of the Arabian Nights, and an extraordinary spirit ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler

... palace so gorgeous and so beautiful that it might have come out of the Arabian Nights. This palace the English general gave orders to his soldiers to pillage and to destroy. Four millions of money could not have replaced what was destroyed then. The soldiers grew reckless as they went on, and wild for plunder. Quantities ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang

... start?" I ask presently, as we return, rather like bashful yokels, to the library, and the old gentleman reading the Arabian Nights in the armchair in the corner glances up at me with a ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... one thing, however. All the nonsense was out of her head. To-morrow she would be returning to the regular job. She would have a page from the Arabian Nights to look upon in the days to come. She understood, though it twisted her heart dreadfully: she was in the eyes of this man a plaything, a pretty woman he had met in passing. If she had saved his life he had in turn saved hers; they were quits. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... Hebraists think that the word "Yahveh" is much more nearly the right one. The Mohammedans, who have received many notions from the Jews, believe the same story about the secret name of God, and they think it was engraved on Solomon's signet, as all readers of the Arabian Nights will very well remember. The Jews believed that if you pronounced the word "Satan" any evil spirit that happened to be by could in consequence instantly pop into you if he wished, and possess you, as the devils in ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... amanuensis for some poor fellow who had an armless sleeve, and write down for loving eyes and heavy hearts in some distant village the same old soldier's story, told a thousand times by a thousand firesides, but always more charming than any story in the Arabian Nights,—how, on that great day, he stood with his company on a hillside, and saw the long line of the enemy come rolling across the valley; how, when, the cannon opened on them, he could see the rough, ragged gaps opening in the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... had no other sentiment for Julius than his sister had. She thought him the kindest and the best; and much as she reverenced the village pedagogues, she thought Julius's learning profounder than theirs, for he told them stories from the Arabian Nights—taught them the traditions of Monument Mountain—made them learn by heart the poetry that has immortalized them, and performed other miracles of learning and teaching, to ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... at various times the property of William Morris, York Powell, and John Payne, and contains records of all three, and pencil notes of illuminating criticism, for which I believe the translator of 'The Arabian Nights' is mainly responsible. My thanks are due to Mr. Lionel Giles for the translation of Po Chu-i's "Peaceful Old Age", and for the thorough revision of the Chinese names throughout the book. Mr. Walter Old is also responsible for a few of Po Chu-i's shorter poems ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng

... the "Provincial Letters"? It is the style, the irony, the elegance. It is the exquisite delineation of character, the moral wisdom, the purity and force of language, the artistic arrangement, and the lively and interesting narratives, appealing to all minds, like the "Arabian Nights," or Froissart's "Chronicles," which give immortality to the classic authors of antiquity. We will not let them perish, because they amuse us, and inspire us. Livy doubtless was too ambitious in aspiring to write accurately the whole ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... the principal actors in it are clearly divine beings who have been brought down to the level of human nature, and who perform feats and tricks so strange and incredible that in reading them we imagine ourselves in the midst of the Arabian Nights. In the struggles of the two favourite heroes against the cruel princes of Xibalba, there may be reminiscences of historical events; but it would be perfectly hopeless to attempt to extricate these from the mass of fable by which they are surrounded. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... orders by wireless. Of the country before us we knew next to nothing. We did not grasp that the great river at whose mouth we lay was called the Shatt-el-Arab and not the Tigris; and I do not think that a single one of us possessed a copy of the "Arabian Nights." Few of us knew anything about the gun-running troubles in the Persian Gulf of recent years, and of the exploits ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne

... son and interesting him in Nature. Very early in life Hans was taken for long Sunday rambles, his father pointing out to him the beauties of woods and meadows, or enchanting him with stories from the "Arabian Nights." ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson

... a fantastic world, full of fantastic people who speak Chestertonese, then he is quite entitled to waive any trifling conventions which hinder the liberty of his subjects. As already pointed out, such is his humour. The only disadvantage, as somebody once complained of the Arabian Nights, is that one is apt to lose one's interest in a hero who is liable at any moment to turn into a camel. None of Chesterton's heroes do, as a matter of fact, become camels, but I would nevertheless strongly advise any young woman about to marry ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... good. It sounds like a page of the old 'Arabian Nights' that I used to read when I was a boy. You know, it really isn't surprising that Brookings didn't believe a ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... remember this: I am called Barkilphedro; I am clerk to the Admiralty. It was I who opened Hardquanonne's flask and drew your destiny out of it. Thus, in the 'Arabian Nights' a fisherman releases a ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... aloud to him began soon after our marriage, with Plutarch's "Lives"—an old folio edition. Holland's translation of Pliny's "Natural History" was also a treasure for the purpose, and the "Arabian Nights" were ever fresh. The description of "Mrs. Gamp's apartment in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn," was read over and over again until I, but not he, was wearied for a time. These were all classics admitting of no criticism, but some books were illuminated by commentary. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... it, and after three hundred years Flemish Zealand once more saw the light, and was restored to the continent like a child raised from the dead. Thus in Holland lands rise, sink, and reappear, like the realms of the Arabian Nights at the touch of a magic wand. Flemish Zealand, which is divided from Belgian Flanders by the double barrier of politics and religion, and from Holland by the Scheldt, preserves the customs, the beliefs, and the exact ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... hold you in your bed, there were times when you were so hot with fever that I expected to see you burst into a mass of red and yellow flames, and most all the while you talked with a vividness and imagination that I've never known before outside of the Arabian Nights. Dick, where did you get the idea about a Sioux Indian following you all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with stops every half hour for you ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... the days of Haroun-al-Raschid; only the puppets, poor children of mere magic, had not the traditions of the golden age of science for a setting, and were obliged to content themselves with mere tricks of jars of genii instead of applied electricity and its daring. What an Arabian Nights' Entertainment we might have had if only Scheherazade had ever heard of the Present! As for the thousand-and-one-nights, they would not have contained all her invention. No wonder that the time went trippingly for the two ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... ingenious writer on the Arabian Nights, observed to me that Moliere, it must be presumed, never read Fletcher's plays, yet his "Bourgeois Gentilhomme" and the other's "Noble Gentleman" bear in some instances a great resemblance. Both may have drawn from the same Italian source of comedy ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... it only the life of old Egypt which interested me: the scenes in modern Eastern life also gave a needed change in my environment. At Cairo, in the bazaar in contact with the daily life, which seemed like a chapter out of the "Arabian Nights," and also in the modern part of the city, in contact with the newer life of Egypt among English and Egyptian functionaries, there was constant stimulus ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... be filled with serious thoughts, Molly, when a sort of Arabian Nights' affair has tumbled on him all of a sudden—took him aback like a white squall, and thrown him ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne

... the Arabian Nights, the way we've gone on and all the time kept together, Peter," Nat said one day. "Think of it! We have been given more money and better jobs all the time. I do not just see why, either. Lots of the men who started long ago in the beamhouse of ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... to see the wonderful silver and black effect when I throw its light upon the stalactites which drape the lofty roofs. Shut off the lamp, and you are in the blackest darkness. Turn it on, and it is a scene from the Arabian Nights. ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... notions. His hunting-parties, his supper-parties, the fetes he gave upon every occasion, the worldly inventiveness, the sumptuousness and reckless extravagance that made each of these affairs seem like a supplement to "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments," the sybaritic luxury of his surroundings, the incredible prodigality of his expenditure, all served profoundly to ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... all. Each of these great men is perpetually surrounded by an army of retainers, dependants, and slaves; and public affairs are transacted, partly according to some old routine, difficult for a stranger to understand, partly after the fashion of "Arabian Nights," kings meeting casually at the head of great armies in some poetical wilderness. All these chieftains are both pastors and merchants. One of their chief articles of traffic is, I am sorry to say, their unfortunate fellow-creatures. They are the greatest ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... ought to be accepted stretched so far ahead that it seemed as if there would be little time left in which to entertain in return. In earlier days the girls had delighted to discuss gorgeous and bizarre ideas, smacking more of the Arabian Nights than of an English country house, by the execution of which they hoped to electrify the county and prove their own skill as hostesses; but of late these schemes had been unmentioned. Ruth was too much crushed by her disappointment to have spirit for frivolities, and the shadow ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... he derived the contempt for self-indulgence, and the indifference to pain, which distinguished him in after life. On the other hand, he was allowed to read what he liked, and devoured Grimm's Tales, The Seven Champions of Christendom, and The Arabian Nights. He was an imaginative and reflective child, full of the wonder in which ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... make Arabian Nights out of dull foggy London Days; with your beautiful female imagination, shape burnished copper Castles out of London Fog! It is very beautiful of you;—nay, it is not foolish either, it is wise. I have a guess what of truth ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... and looked up at her sideways out of his hard little eye (so different from the dog's) with the expression of one who would say: "The most beauteous and delectable worm I have ever encountered. If I were a bit bigger, say the size of the roc of the Arabian Nights, what a dainty morsel you would make! In the meantime can't you shed something of yourself for my entertainment like others, though grosser, of your species?" She laughed at the cold impudence of the creature, just as she had smiled at the butterflies ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... had cost perhaps about fifteen dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus could not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise on the microscope,—its history, uses, and discoveries. I comprehended then for the first time the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." The dull veil of ordinary existence that hung across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments. I felt towards my companions as the seer might feel towards the ordinary masses of men. I held conversations with nature in a tongue which they ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... the apple story is a fable, is silenced by his bishop or hounded down for "heresy." And still they go right on telling little children that it is the "word of God" and the only guide of life. For truth, better give them AEsop's Fables or the Arabian Nights; for purity the Decameron or Don Juan; for examples of justice the story of Blue-Beard or the life of ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... day? I have forgotten even the street, but we can find it again. It had a long sloping lawn, you remember, and stone steps and a beautiful panelled hall running straight through to a walled garden which might well have fallen there by some Arabian Nights enchantment. That is the house I mean to have for Esther. I can see her there quite plainly, in her blue dress, filling the rose bowl which stands upon the round table in a dusky corner of the hall. Over her shoulder, through the open door, glows the riotous colour ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... yet how strong and free is her use of words!—"I lay at the foot of the bed because Isabella said I disturbed her by continial fighting and kicking, but I was very dull, and continially at work reading the Arabian Nights, which I could not have done if I had slept at the top. I am reading the Mysteries of Udolpho. I am much interested in the ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... very useful in keeping up the spirits of the forlorn party. In the early part of life he had undergone many curious adventures at sea, which he now recounted somewhat after the manner of the tales of the "Arabian Nights." When one observed that the beacon was a most comfortless lodging, Glen would presently introduce some of his exploits and hardships, in comparison with which the state of things at the beacon bore an aspect of comfort and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... social Arabian Nights' dream, however, you will find no sailors or soldiers, no great actors or writers, no real poets or artists, no genuine statesmen. The nearest you will get to any of these is the millionaire senator, or the amateur decorators and portrait ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... and her place taken by a book. My lady correspondent, it will be remembered, was in favor of some doctrinal difficulty. My second correspondent, the secretary of the charitable institution, would have chosen as the cause of Father Oliver's flight a sensual book. His choice might have been Burton's "Arabian Nights"; better still Casanova's "Memoirs," for this is a book written almost entirely with the senses; the intellect hardly ever intrudes itself; and instead of an emaciated priest poring over a dusty folio we should have ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... Sam? do tell me all about it; it's quite romantic. I vow, it's like the Arabian Nights' Entertainment. You are so unlucky, I swow I should ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... showed me some sketches of St. Non's Sicily and harbour of Malta, forty drawings, given by St. Non himself, each bearing the name in pencil; he also showed me a MS. "Arabian Nights." He studied Arabic very deeply in Paris, and had a Mussulman master. He read to me part of a tale never put into the ordinary edition, translated into English tersely and perspicuously. He is much indebted to Arabic MS. for ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown

... serrated cirques and sea of snowy peaks, the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne with its cascades, rushing river and frothing Waterwheels, are but the headliners of a long catalogue of the unexpected and extraordinary. It only remains, to complete this new tale of the Arabian Nights, to make one's first visit to the sequoias of Mariposa Grove. The first sight of the calm tremendous columns which support the lofty roof of this forest temple provokes a new sensation. Unconsciously the visitor removes his hat and speaks his praise ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... investiture which he has bestowed on us, at least among Christians; for the Pagans were far more pious in this respect; and Mohammed agreed with them in doing justice to the beauty and dignity of the human frame. It is quite edifying, in the Arabian Nights, to read the thanks that are so often and so rapturously given to the Supreme Being for his bestowal of such charms on his creatures. Nor was a greater than Mahomet of a nature to undervalue the earthly temples of gentle and loving spirits. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... into a passage leading to a large yard. We could have fancied ourselves transported by magic to the scene of one of the fantastic "Arabian Nights," for all the glory of the East seemed spread before our delighted gaze. In the midst of the courtyard, which was paved with large stones, a large reservoir, with a sparkling fountain, spread a delightful coolness around. ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... De Tott, Lady M.W. Montague, Hawkins's Translation from Mignot's History of the Turks, the Arabian Nights, all travels, or histories, or books upon the East I could meet with, I had read, as well as Rycaut, before I was ten years old. I think the Arabian Nights first. After these, I preferred the history of naval actions, Don Quixote, and Smollett's novels, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... observation rather than to talking; accustomed to using their eyes and hands. It is difficult to realize that some quiet, young fellow who is pointed out has had so many hairbreadth escapes. What tales, worthy of Arabian Nights' heroes who are borne away-on magic carpets, they bring home, relating them as matter-of-factly as if ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... out with it," said Willie, with a laugh; "why, this is something like one of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments." ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... etc., were once supposed to be helpful to some favored men. The stories about these imaginary beings have always had a fascinating interest. The most famous of these stories were told at Bagdad in the eleventh century, and were called The Arabian Nights' Entertainment. Then men were said to use all sorts of obedient powers, sorceries, tricks, and genii to aid them in getting wealth, fame, ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... me at my handwriting and composition, and, (the signal event of my life up to that time,) subscribed for me to a big circulating library. For a time I now revel'd in romance-reading of all kinds; first, the "Arabian Nights," all the volumes, an amazing treat. Then, with sorties in very many other directions, took in Walter Scott's novels, one after another, and his poetry, (and continue to enjoy novels ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... the tributaries, when fishing is intermitted for a single day, the sturgeons have been known to completely fill a river 360 feet wide, so that the backs of the uppermost fish were pushed out of the water. (I take this statement, not from the 'Arabian Nights,' as the scoffer might imagine, but from that most respectable authority, Professor Seeley.) Still, in spite of the enormous quantity killed, there is no danger of any falling off in the supply for the future, for every fish lays from two ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... as they were set, and any attempt to recall a dish was met by the declaration that it was already packed away in the wagon. As they at last rose from the actually empty board, and saw even the tables disappear, Lady Elfrida plaintively protested that she felt as if she had been presiding over an Arabian Nights entertainment, served by genii, and she knew that they would all awaken hungry when they were well on their way back. Nevertheless, in spite of this expedition, the officers lounged about smoking until every trace of the festivity had vanished. Reggy found himself standing ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... very little in accordance with the principles of the Justinian code: the promise of Belisarius is considered of more value than the laws of the empire. He appears in the character of a vizier or a sultan in the Arabian Nights. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... Mahomedans," said Vanna, "and it is only a story of love and fighting like the Arabian Nights. If they had been Hindus, it might well have been of Krishna or of Rama and Sita. Their faith comes from an earlier time and they still see visions. The Moslem is a hard practical faith for men—men of the world too. It is not visionary now, though ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck

... in ecstasies; he beholds the realization of the Arabian Nights, and when the harmony commences again, he is fairly entranced. At first, he is fearful of adding the efforts of his laryngeal "little muscles with the long names" to swell the chorus; but, after the second ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various

... trivial. She kept her conscious hand in the folds of her skirt. She would have liked to strip off her glove and show them the ring. It would have entertained them so much. To herself its entertainment was of the Arabian Nights—the way of its finding, its beauty in the false setting, the struggle over it in the shop—all were wine to her imagination. It was a thing to conjure adventure; it was ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... pattern of your stories appears to have been taken from the Arabian Nights and from Grimm's Fairy Tales—but with not a millionth part of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... indifference, real or assumed. Voltaire had no enthusiasm for one thing or another: he made light of every thing. In his hands all things turn to chaff and dross, as the pieces of silver money in the Arabian Nights were changed by the hands of the enchanter into little dry crumbling leaves! He is a Parisian. He never exaggerates, is never violent: he treats things with the most provoking sang froid; and expresses his contempt by the most indirect hints, and in the fewest words, as if he hardly thought ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... cloakes and scarves on their heads bound with coils of wool worn garland-wise, as one sees in Biblical pictures. They seem friendly, or rather wholly indifferent to one, and I felt at times I might be invisible and watching an Arabian Nights' story for all the notice they took of me. By the way, I want you to send me a portable edition of the Arabian Nights as ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer

... up more autographs: she thought they might like to see, in Europe, in what company they would be. The "girl-friend," the western city, the immortal names, the curious errand, the idyllic faith, all made a story as strange to me, and as beguiling, as some tale in the Arabian Nights. Thus it was that my informant had encumbered herself with the ponderous tome; but she hastened to assure me that this was the first time she had brought it out. For her visit to Mr. Paraday it had simply been a pretext. She didn't really care a straw that he should ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James

... noticed Foedor; for what was a young sub-lieutenant, without fortune or prospects, to her? What she dreamed of was some princely alliance, that would make her one of the most powerful ladies in Russia, and unless he could realise some dream of the Arabian Nights, Foedor could not ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... us; nay, there is no word, however common, if only you know how to take it to pieces, like a cunningly contrived work of art, fitted together thousands of years ago by the most cunning of artists, the human mind, that will not make you listen and marvel more than any chapter of the Arabian Nights. ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... 24th, 1821, the son of a wealthy London merchant. A delicate child, he participated in none of the ordinary sports of children, but sat instead for hours listening to his mother's reading of the Bible and the 'Arabian Nights.' She had a great influence on his early development. She was a Calvinist, deeply religious, and Buckle himself in after years acknowledged that to her he owed his faith in human progress through the dissemination and triumph of truth, as well as his taste for philosophic ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... sounded him a moment with the sharp face of London wage-earning, and still more of London tip-earning, infancy, and vanished as swiftly as a slave of the Arabian Nights. While he waited in the lobby the audience began to pour out, and before the urchin had come back to him he was clapped on the ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... The Arabian Nights rehearsed in bed! The Fairy Tales in school-time read, By stealth, 'twixt verb and noun! The angel form that always walk'd In all my dreams, and look'd and talk'd Exactly like ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come home of a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that he told me no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting Clara Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join them (with a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up the Nile and seeing wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own part in those bright plans, I felt that Herbert's way was clearing fast, and that old Bill Barley had but to ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... the Arabian Nights is very Oriental, very original, very curious. Its four hundred thousand souls form a strange conglomerate of humanity. In its narrow, picturesque streets one is jostled by gayly dressed Greeks and cunning Jews, by ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... pauper hunting upon blood-horses, in a star and garter, and perhaps in a collar of SS! The plain, historical truth, meanwhile, survives, that this pauper was simply the richest man in Christendom; and that, except Aladdin (Oh, yes; always except Aladdin of the Arabian Nights!) there never had been a richer. And thus collapses the whole fable, like a soap-bubble punctured ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... seemed never to have seen anything but Stornham and the village. G. Selden liked him, and was vaguely sorry for a little chap to whom a description of the festivities attendant upon the Fourth of July and a Presidential election seemed like stories from the Arabian Nights. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... fact has no practical relation to gardening; but it occurs to me that, if I should paper the outside of my high board fence with the leaves of "The Arabian Nights," it would afford me a good deal of protection,—more, in fact, than spikes in the top, which tear trousers and encourage profanity, but do not save much fruit. A spiked fence is a challenge to any boy ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Miss Ellen Terry's, Mr. Marcus Stone and his sisters were frequenters of his house, so were Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Woolner the sculptor - of whom I was not particularly fond - Horace Wigan the actor, and his father, the Burtons, who were much attached to him - Burton dedicated one volume of his 'Arabian Nights' to him - Sir William Crookes, Mr. Justin Macarthy and his talented son, and ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... and having listened intently for a few moments, proceeded again to search the singular apartments of the abode. In each was evidence of Oriental occupancy; indeed, some of the rooms possessed a sort of Arabian Nights atmosphere. But no living creature was to be seen or heard anywhere. It was while the two of us, having examined every inch of wall, I should think, in the building, were standing staring rather blankly ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... that man has seen these things and a few others that go with a boom he may say that he has lived, and talk with his enemies in the gate. He has heard the Arabian Nights retold and knows the inward kernel of that romance, which some? little folk say is vanished. Here they lie in their false teeth, for Cortes is not dead, nor Drake, and Sir Philip Sidney dies every few months if you know where to look. The adventurers and captains courageous of old have ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... said Bertha; "he's devoted to books. Last time I went to see him, when he was at home for the holidays, I found among his books a nice copy of 'The New Arabian Nights.' We hadn't one in the house at the time, and I asked him to ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... 30.-Arabian Nights. Bishop Atterbury. Sinbad the Sailor versus AEneas. Mrs. Piozzi's Travels. King's College Chapel. Effects of criticism and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... pointed at a rabbit's hole, where the company within were placed so near the opening that he could see Mynheer, Madame, and the whole rabbit family. Pompey, encouraged, brought out the old coney, his wife, and seven young ones,—all, like the callenders in the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments,' blind of one eye, and that the same eye. The question was, on which side of the island was the rabbit's hole? With a very little reasoning and comparing, it was found that from its position, the keen blast must ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... hill." This showed Messrs. Holt's local factory to be no bigger than Ugumu's. At this point a big, scraggy, very black man with an irregularly formed face the size of a tea-tray and looking generally as if he had come out of a pantomime on the Arabian Nights, dashed through the crowd, shouting, "I'm for Holty, I'm for Holty." "This is my trade, you go 'way," says Agent number one. Fearing my two Agents would fight and damage each other, so that neither would be any good for me, I firmly said, "Have ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... so completely and for so long a period, buried in sand, that even its existence remained unsuspected. It had been dedicated to Isis by the Queen of Rameses the Great; and the descriptions which travelers give of it, resemble those of the palaces in the "Arabian Nights." Four colossal figures, sixty-one feet in height, are seated in front. Eight others, forty-eight in height, and standing up, support the roof of the principal inner hall, in which gigantic bas-reliefs represent the whole history of Rameses. Sixteen other halls, scarcely smaller than the first, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... spend a peaceful "Lowden Sabbath morning" with his "living Scotch" sounding in our ears. However far away Louis Stevenson roved, there was mirrored on the tablets of his memory his own country, its speech, its very atmosphere. He wrote a New Arabian Nights, but from the old (he tells us how his minister grandfather envied him his first reading thereof) he had acquired the secret of the magic carpet, and could be transported at will from the tropics ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson

... less rugged, and descend in gentler slopes to the water's edge; charming little plains, checkered with fruit-trees and shaded by planes, frequently open; and the delicious Sweet Waters of Asia exhibit a scene of enchantment equal to any described in the Arabian Nights. Women, children, and black slaves in every variety of costume and colour; veiled ladies from Constantinople; cattle and buffaloes ruminating in the pastures; Arab horses clothed in the most sumptuous trappings of velvet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... Happiness" (1727). Although the scene is laid in Venice, the model of this framework story was probably not the "Decameron" but the Oriental tales, known in England through French translations and imitations of the "Arabian Nights." Intercalated stories were not uncommon in French romances, but they were almost invariably introduced as life histories of the various characters. A fantastic framework, with a hint of magic, fabricated expressly to give unity to a series of tales, half exemplary, half satirical, ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... costume of this, the beautiful Mademoiselle de la Valiere, upon a form that surpasses her own; I raise my eyes, and I behold a mask, and yet I recognize the lady; beauty is like that precious stone in the 'Arabian Nights,' which emits, no matter how concealed, a light that ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... distinguish between good and bad stone, their differing qualities being to us novices extremely difficult to detect, we sat down quietly to enjoy the view and try to realise the truth of the wonderful stories we had been hearing, which seemed more fit to furnish material for a fresh chapter of the 'Arabian Nights,' or to be embodied in an appendix to 'King Solomon's Mines,' than to figure in a business report in this prosaic nineteenth century. Mabelle and I returned slowly to the hotel, which we found clean and comfortable. While I was lying on the sofa, waiting for the others ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... struck a small, paper-covered volume lying there, sending it sliding to the edge of the turf. By its picturesque cover he recognized it as the book the girl had been reading. He picked it up carelessly, and saw that its title was "New Arabian Nights," the author being of the name of Stevenson. He dropped it again upon the grass, and lounged, irresolute, for a minute. Then he stepped into the automobile, reclined upon the cushions, and said two words ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... not be so. Fifty years ago the man would have been laughed at who talked about sending a message to Australia and getting the answer back the same day, but we do not think much of it now. We would have thought of the Arabian Nights, and magicians, if a man had spoken to some one miles away, then listened to his tiny whisper answering back; but these telephonic communications are getting to be common business matters now. Why, Vane, when I was a little ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... sprightly account of one Nicolas, who was called, if our memory be not at fault, the man-fish, and who was endowed by his Creator-the late Mr. Goldsmith aforesaid-with the power of conducting an active existence under the sea. That equally veracious and instructive work "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments," peoples the bottom of old ocean with powerful nations of similarly gifted persons; while in our own day "the Man-Frog" has taught us what may be done in this line when one has once ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... golden-haired grand-daughter. They went home to talk about her. They went to bed to dream of her. They read Mary Lamb's stories from Shakespeare, and Hope Wayne was Ophelia, and Desdemona, and Imogen—above all others, she was Juliet. They read the "Arabian Nights," and she was all the Arabian Princesses with unpronounceable names. They read Miss Edgeworth—"Helen," "Belinda."—"Oh, thunder!" they cried, and dropped the ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... exclaims, "how like the Gorgon of the Arabian Nights thou art! For does not every one whom thou favorest undergo a pitiful transformation even from the first bedding with thee? Does not everything suffer from thy look, thy touch, thy breath? The rose loses its perfume, the grape-vine its clusters, the bulbul its wings, the dawn its light and glamour. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... with all he saw, and yet a dreamy sense of their unreality was gradually stealing over him. He imagined himself some wonderful personage in an Eastern fairy-tale, and felt for the moment as if he were moving in an animated chapter of the "Arabian Nights." He had had little hesitation in asking Annunciata questions about herself; they seemed both, somehow, raised above the petty etiquette of mundane intercourse. She had confessed to him with an unthinking directness which was extremely becoming to her, that her ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... something,' says he, 'next time we call. What shall it be? Now's the time to ask. I'm like the fellow in the "Arabian Nights", the slave of the ring—your ring.' Here he took the girl's hand, and pretending to look at a ring she wore took it up and kissed it. It wasn't a very ugly one neither. 'What ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... air, and the magic grapes that bring to life. The Italian version follows closely the Oriental original. The same may be said of another story in the same collection, No. 48, "The Traveller from Turin," which is nothing but Sindbad's "Fourth Voyage."[12] The last story taken from the Arabian Nights which we shall mention is that of "The Second Royal Mendicant," found in Comparetti (No. 63, "My Happiness") from the Basilicata, and in the collection of Mantuan stories. The latter (No. 8) is entitled: "There is no ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... at three years of age; at five he had gone through the Bible and the Arabian Nights; at thirty he was perhaps the most widely read man of his generation in the fields of literature and philosophy. He was a student in a famous charity school in London when he met Charles Lamb, who records his memories of the boy ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... there but thought on the instant of the Arabian nights and the genii who went up in smoke—those ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... books that were not of my culling, from the oak cases, whose every door stood ajar,—novels innumerable,—"The Arabian Nights," Vaughan's "Silex Scintillans," with a scarlet leaf laid in against "Peace," and "Tennyson" turned on its face at "Fatima," a heavy volume of French moral philosophy, a Methodist hymn-book, Sir Thomas Browne's "Hydriotaphia," and a gilded ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... biographer tells us, quoting James Huneker. "For a sapling poet, within a few short years and by the hard business of words, to attain to a secretary and a butler and a family of, at length, four children, is a modern Arabian Nights Tale." Aye, indeed! But Joyce Kilmer will have as genuine a claim on remembrance by reason of his friends' love as in anything his own hand penned. And what an encircling, almost paternal, gentleness there is in the picture of the young poet as ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... in the 'Arabian Nights' of a princess who, by overlooking one seed of a pomegranate, precipitated the event which she had laboured to make impossible. She lies in wait for the event which she foresees. The pomegranate swells, opens, splits; the seeds, which she knows ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... others successively picked out, and thrown away. Something like the same process had gone on, long before, with the originals of these books. The world takes liberties with world-books. Vedas, AEsop's Fables, Pilpay, Arabian Nights, Cid, Iliad, Robin Hood, Scottish Minstrelsy, are not the work of single men. In the composition of such works, the time thinks, the market thinks, the mason, the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... original writer as Petronius was may well have thought of connecting these different episodes by making them the experiences of a single individual. The Encolpius of Petronius would in that case be in a way an ancient Don Juan. If we compare the Arabian Nights with one of the groups of stories found in the Romances of the Round Table, we can see what this step forward would mean. The tales which bear the title of the Arabian Nights all have the same general setting and the same general treatment, and they ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... it into execution. This story of the two girls weeping, and filling Madame's bedroom with the noisiest lamentations, was Malicorne's chef-d'oeuvre. As nothing is so probable as improbability, so natural as romance, this kind of Arabian Nights story succeeded perfectly with Madame. The first thing she did, was to send Montalais away, and then three days, or rather three nights, afterward, she had La Valliere removed. She gave to the latter one of the small rooms on the top story, situated immediately over the apartments allotted ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... stagnant ignorance, their close confinement, and the profound sensual element in their religion. Yet there are exceptions to the rule there as well as elsewhere. It was a woman who recited the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments" to the Sultan. Oriental literature boasts many shining names of women. We have a pleasing introduction to some of them in Garcia de Tassy's essay on "The Female Poets of India." Ruckert's "Hamiisa," a collection of Arabic poetry, contains specimens from fifty-five ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... that region. No doubt the French King thought that Cartier would find his way to the sea of Verrazano, beyond which were probably the lands visited by Marco Polo, that enterprising merchant of Venice, whose stories of adventure in India and China read like stories of the Arabian Nights. ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... cushioned divan; and that sense of palace within palace and garden within garden which makes the rich irresponsibility of the East. Have we not already the wordless dance, the wineless banquet, and all that strange unchristian conception of luxury without laughter? Are we not already in an evil Arabian Nights, and walking the nightmare cities of an invisible despot? Does not our hangman strangle secretly, the bearer of the bow string? Are we not already eugenists—that is, eunuch-makers? Do we not see the bright eyes, the motionless faces, and all that ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... are even now remembered. Jackson of Exeter still survives as a native composer of original genius. He was also an author of high aesthetical speculation. The heroic poems of Hole are forgotten, but his essay on the Arabian Nights is still a cherished volume of elegant and learned criticism. Hayter was the classic antiquary who first discovered the art of unrolling the MSS. of Herculaneum. There were many others, noisier and more bustling, who are now forgotten, though they ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... said George, contemptuously, "she got that out of the Arabian Nights." But this suspicion did not prevent him, the next time Honora regaled them with more adventures of the palace by the summer seas, from listening with a rapt attention. No two tales were ever alike. His admiration for Honora did not wane, but increased. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... checked," continued Brettison, "and I could not help thinking, as I found myself hedged in by obstacles, how much safer we all are in London than we think. The difficulty seemed to increase, and at last I began to recall the story in the 'Arabian Nights' about the man choking himself to death with a bone, and the trouble his host had to dispose of the body. You remember about how they propped it up against another man's door, so that he knocked it down and imagined that he had killed the intruder. I fancied myself carrying the ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... mob and the soldier-bandits got into the city is a story that makes any tale of the Arabian Nights fade away into ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... himself in a new home, the house became transformed as if a magician of the Arabian Nights had touched it with his wand. There was not a dark or gloomy corner to be seen. Lights blazed everywhere. The rarest pictures and choicest furniture were to be seen. Everything was magnificent and harmonious. The tall stature of the Count, his excessive ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... moral justification. The truth is, no doubt, that the whole spectacle was plunged for him in the glamour of romance. Paris did not belong to the working-day world, but was like Baghdad or Samarcand, a city of the Arabian Nights. How his imagination transfigured it we may see in such ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... the field of literature, but the girls all enjoy the windings of romance, and the boys delight in the highway of adventure. "But," they say or think, "Missions, their history and progress are so stupid, they have no decent heroes and heroines. We like Robinson Crusoe, and Little Women, and the Arabian Nights!" But do we not know that the stories of the lives of some of our missionaries, well told, may stand side by side, upon the book-shelves and in the hearts of our young people, with the pages of De Foe and Louise Alcott? Many a boy ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker

... in the history of Cogia Hassan Alhabbal, in the "Arabian Nights," as I knew very well. But we put the ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray

... literary excitement. She handed him over to a manservant, who offered him dress clothes, and waited upon him with the calm, dexterous skill of a well-trained valet. He laughed softly to himself as he passed down the broad stairs. Surely he had wandered through dreamland into some corner of the Arabian Nights?—else he had passed from one extreme of life to the other with a strange, almost ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... about and looks perfectly miserable, and when he comes back he always goes off for a long walk by himself. I am perfectly certain that for some reason or other he hates going. Yet he seems to have been everywhere, to know every one. To hear him talk with Mrs. Handsell is like a new Arabian Nights to me." ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... for the purpose of getting her out for a little fresh air, he proposed that she should go for an hour's walk every day, and during her absence invent a story to be told on her return. It was to be a sort of Arabian Nights' Entertainment, with him as the Sultan and her as Scheherazade. The Dynamiter was suggested by certain attempted outrages in London which had all turned out to be fiascos. She began with the Mormon tale and followed with the others, one for each afternoon. Afterwards, when a lean time ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... whose wealth, if the half were told, would seem as fabulous as an "Arabian Nights Story," we visited "Central City" and "Black Hawk,", which are so close together that it has been facetiously said "It is impossible for a citizen to tell where he lives without going out doors and looking at ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... picturesque figures in America before the war was John C. Fremont, known as "The Pathfinder," whose "Narrative," in the fifties, was read by boys with the same avidity that they displayed in the perusal of the "Arabian Nights." Fremont had a regiment of "Mounted Riflemen" in the Mexican war, though it served in California, and the youthful imagination of those days idealized it into a corps d'elite, as it idealized the Mexican war veterans, Marion's men, or the Old Guard of Napoleon Bonaparte. The name had ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... and romantic, is a horde of huddled refugees living among ruins. It may rebuild; it probably will; but those who have known that peculiar city by the Golden Gate and have caught its flavor of the Arabian Nights feel that it can never be the same. When it rises out of its ashes it will probably doubtless resemble other modern cities and have lost its old ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... to him inexhaustible, and he had drawn on it like a Prince in the Arabian Nights on the ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... directly at him. In spite of the business-like appearance of the room, the business-like attitude of the two men opposite to him, he still felt that odd Arabian Nights' entertainment sensation. The room and its occupants seemed to be masquerading under a business garb; it seemed to need but one word—if he could have found it—to metamorphose the whole thing back to its original ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... you any new novels? Send up Scribe and the 'Arabian Nights' and 'Robinson Crusoe' and the 'Three Guardsmen,' and Mrs. Whitney's books. We ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... point—a monster he was—dreadful, shapeless, huge, who had lost an eye. But why should that delight me? Had he been one of the Calendars in the Arabian Nights, and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal curiosity, what right had I to exult in his misfortune? I did not exult: I delighted in no man's punishment, though it were even merited. But these personal distinctions identified in an instant ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... St. Mark extended his hand out of it, with a gold ring on one of the fingers, which he permitted a noble of the Dolfin family to remove; and a quaint and delightful story was further invented of this ring, which I shall not repeat here, as it is now as well known as any tale of the Arabian Nights. But the fast and the discovery of the coffin, by whatever means effected, are facts; and they are recorded in one of the best-preserved mosaics of the north transept, executed very certainly not long after the event had taken place, closely resembling in its treatment that of the ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... you certainly will not envy;" then, evidently desirous to change the subject, he said in a livelier tone, "But what a marvellous city this Paris of ours is! Remember I had never seen it before: it burst on me like a city in the Arabian Nights two weeks ago. And that which strikes me most—I say it with regret and a pang of conscience—is certainly not the Paris of former times, but that Paris which M. Buonaparte—I beg pardon, which the Emperor—has called up around him, and identified ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... northern sea, upon the edge of the six-months' night; out of Edda stories of the Midgard snake, which is coiled round the world; out of reports, it may be, of Indian fakirs and Buddhist shamans; out of scraps of Greek and Arab myth, from the Odyssey or the Arabian Nights, brought home by "Jorsala Farar," vikings who had been for pilgrimage and plunder up the Straits of Gibraltar into the far East;—out of all these materials were made up, as years rolled on, the famous legend of St. Brendan and his seven years' voyage in search of the "land ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... too fast, or papa was full, or both, but the shell went off (in the usual way) before he threw it, and where was papa’s hand? Well, there’s nothing to hurt in that; the islands up north are all full of one-handed men, like the parties in the “Arabian Nights”; but either Randall was too old, or he drank too much, and the short and the long of it was that he died. Pretty soon after, the nigger was turned out of the island for stealing from white men, and went off to the west, ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the old mossy vicarage where Coleridge spent his dreamy childhood lay a well-thumbed copy of that volume of Oriental fancy, the "Arabian Nights," and he has told us with what mingled desire and apprehension he was wont to look at the precious book, until the morning sunshine had touched and illuminated it, when, seizing it hastily, he would carry it off in triumph to some leafy nook in the vicarage garden, ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... owner of nearly half a million dollars! No wonder she was overcome! It seemed like an Arabian Nights' tale. ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt

... the "Constitution of Man" in which the ordinary reader finds amusement to carry him through; whereas the work itself, full of curious miscellaneous information, is eminently readable; and that the "Vestiges of Creation,"—a treatise as entertaining as the "Arabian Nights,"—bids fair, not from the amount of error which it contains, but from the amount of fresh and interestingly told truth with which the error is mingled, to live and do mischief when the various solidly-scientific replies which it has called forth are laid upon the shelf. Both the "Constitution" ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... volumes, written in 1764-5, and containing what is rarely met with, a complete collection of the Thousand and one Tales (N.B. an error for "Nights") of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, was bought from Captain Jonathan Scott for 50. Mr. Scott published, in 1811, an edition of the Tales in six volumes (N.B. He reprinted the wretched English version of Prof. Galland's admirable French, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... {266a} The Arabian Nights' Entertainments is first introduced to us all as a children's story-book. Tennyson has placed on record his own ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter

... in the world where you can wave a magic wand like that," said Birotteau, with an Asiatic gesture worthy of the Arabian Nights. "You will do me the honor to come to my ball, monsieur? Men of talent are not all disdainful of commerce; and you will meet a scientific man of the first order, Monsieur Vauquelin of the Institute; also Monsieur de la Billardiere, Monsieur le ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... had been making slow trips between kitchen and dining-room for some minutes, stopped now to say, in a sort of Arabian Nights measure, "Ef you raddy fuh yo' brekfus, yo' brekfus ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... got the Arabian Nights, and all my favourite books there!" she said at length.—"How long shall we have before we get among the ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... this ugly, rusty, ponderous old box, so worn and battered with time, and recollected with a scornful smile the legends of which it was the object; all of which he despised and discredited, just as much as he did that story in the "Arabian Nights," where a demon comes out of a copper vase, in a cloud of smoke that covers the sea-shore; for he was singularly invulnerable to all modes of superstition, all nonsense, except his own. But that one ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the entertainment to commence by thump of sticks and stamp of boot-heels. Nor was it a great while longer before, in response to their call, there appeared a bearded personage in Oriental robes, looking like one of the enchanters of the Arabian Nights. He came upon the platform from a side door, saluted the spectators, not with a salaam, but a bow, took his station at the desk, and first blowing his nose with a white handkerchief, prepared to speak. The environment of the homely village hall, and the absence of many ingenious contrivances ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Thousand and One Nights; or, The Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Translated and Arranged for Family Reading, with Explanatory Notes, by E. W. LANE. 600 Illustrations by Harvey. 2 vols., ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... circulation in Germany, I believe, on its merits as a serious book. I haven't a copy of the edition in English. THAT was all exhausted by collectors who bought it for its supposed obscenity, like Burton's 'Arabian Nights.' Come this way, and I will ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... Arabian Nights," the motive of the whole series of delightful narratives is that the sultan, who refuses to attend to reason, can be got to listen to a story. May I try whether Cardinal Manning is to be reached in the same way? When I was attending the meeting of the British Association ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... refuge; I take them like opium; and I consider one who writes them as a sort of doctor of the mind. And frankly, Meiklejohn, it is not Shakespeare we take to, when we are in a hot corner; nor, certainly, George Eliot—no, nor even Balzac. It is Charles Reade, or old Dumas, or the Arabian Nights, or the best of Walter Scott; it is stories we want, not the high poetic function which represents the world; we are then like the Asiatic with his improvisatore or the middle-agee with his trouvere. We want incident, interest, action: to the devil with your philosophy. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of a new writer, and is exceedingly well done. It deals with the fortunes of a Chinese professional storyteller, who meets with many surprising adventures. The style suggests somewhat the rich Oriental coloring of the Arabian Nights. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... was scarcely less animated or interesting than within. By the aid of colored lights and other pyrotechnic contrivances the garden was made brilliant and gay as an Arabian Nights dream. The air was perfumed with the aroma of flowers and moistened by the delirious play of fountains. Thousands of people, elegantly dressed, were seated on the out-door terraces, enjoying the fireworks and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... confessed to me she thought that it was a case of "baliffs." I got rid of her as quickly as possible and bolted the door behind her. I felt an irresistible desire to be alone, and to convince myself that the news was real, and not a page out of the "Arabian Nights." ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... Brigaud," said the Marquis de Pompadour, "you are like the princess in the 'Arabian Nights,' who never opened her ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... keeping, too, at that same hour, at the other end of France. And the dear, good friends I had left in Paris and in Rouen—where were they at that moment? What were they doing? Were they thinking of me? How I should have liked to enjoy the wonderful power possessed by certain heroes in the Arabian Nights, which would have allowed me to see at that moment a vision of the loved ones far away. Were they talking about me, sitting together round the fire? I thought that this war had been a splendid thing to us Chasseurs ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont

... elsewhere. At least, I hope that is the case with what I write. So long as your story is true to life, the mere change of local color will set it in the East, West, South, or North. The characters in 'The Arabian Nights' parade up and down Broadway at midday, or Main ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... the richest treasure-house the ransackers of the whole earth have yet brought to light. "The wealth of Ormuz or of Ind," immortalised by Milton's most majestic epic, the wealth of the Rand completely eclipses, and nothing imagined in the glowing pages of the "Arabian Nights" rivals in solid worth the sober realities now being unearthed along this uninviting ridge. It fortunately was not in the power of the Boer Government to carry off this as yet ungarnered treasure, or it would certainly ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... emotion. A refined mind finds as little happiness in love without friendship as in sensuality without love; it may succumb to both, but it accepts neither. What is true of mere sensibility is no less true of mere fancy. The Arabian Nights—futile enough in any case—would be absolutely intolerable if they contained no Oriental manners, no human passions, and no convinced epicureanism behind their miracles and their tattle. Any absolute work of art which serves no further ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... not laugh?" she exclaimed, in a clear and sonorous voice. "Is not this a surprise as if it were a scene from the Arabian Nights? You told me six months ago you were going to have a passage made, by which one might go unseen from my rooms in the Burg to your apartments in the chancery of state. I had no doubt of the truth of what you told me, for fortunately the chancery of state is close to the Burg, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... feel puzzled, not to say alarmed. It reminded me of the butcher in the Arabian Nights, whose common joints, displayed on the shop-front, took to a startled public the appearance of dismembered humanity. This man seemed to see the strangest things ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... The Arabian Nights' Entertainment or Thousand and One Nights is a collection of about four hundred old oriental stories, chiefly from Persia, India, and Arabia. They were brought together probably in the thirteenth century and told orally as stories told to entertain ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... so's we could reach her at any time. She makes a star impression; and with her as an advertisement we'll sell a million dollars' worth of stock, and no trouble at all! She's got that honest look that's convincing. And she can tell a story that beats the Arabian Nights! Ames has given me a week to explain, or make good his investment. By that time we'll have the Leveridges sold for twice his investment, and we'll just pay him off and remove him. Meantime, you go over to the bank in the morning and put up the best line of talk you're capable ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking



Words linked to "Arabian Nights" :   Aladdin's lamp, folktale, folk tale, Thousand and One Nights



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