Olcott, published by Holt in 1913. Editions which attempt to be complete versions are by John Payne (13 volumes, 1882–84), and by Sir Richard Burton (16 volumes, 1885–88). Lane and Burton give copious notes of value. The recent edition by Wiggin and Smith used the editions of Scott and Lane.
The stories in Arabian Nights are Indian, Egyptian, Arabian, and Persian. Scenes are laid principally in Bagdad and Cairo. Lane considered that the one hundred and fifteen stories, which are common to all manuscripts, are based on the Pehlevi original. The idea of the frame of the story came from India. This was the birth of the serial story. There is authority for considering the final collection to have been made in Egypt. Cairo is described most minutely and the customs are of Egypt of the thirteenth century and later. The stories must have been popular in Egypt as they were mentioned by an historian, 1400–70. Lane considered that the final Arabic collection bears to Persian tales the same relation that the Æneid does to the Odyssey. Life depicted is Arabic, and there is an absence of the great Persian heroes. Internal evidence assists in dating the work. Coffee is mentioned only three times. As its use became popular in the East in the fourteenth century this indicates the date of the work to be earlier than the very common use of coffee. Cannon, which are mentioned, were known in Egypt in 1383. Additions to the original were probably made as late as the sixteenth century. The Arabian Nights has been the model for many literary attempts to produce the Oriental tale, of which the tales of George Meredith are notable examples.
Thomas Keightley, in Tales and Popular Fictions, considered Persia the original country of The Thousand and One Nights, and The Voyages of Sinbad, originally a separate work. He showed how some of these tales bear marks of Persian extraction and how some had made their way to Europe through oral transmission before the time of Galland's translation. He selected the tale, "Cleomedes and Clare-