Translated by Malcolm C Lyons
Published Allen Lane
ISBN 9781846148200
Price £25.00 hardback
Dating from at least a millennium ago, these are the earliest known Arabic short stories, surviving in a single, ragged manuscript in a library in Istanbul. In 1933, they were translated into German; for the first time they are now available in English. The 18 short stories that make up this fascinating book date back to the 9th and 10th centuries. Some found their way into The Arabian Nights but most have never been read in English before. Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange has monsters, lost princes, jewels beyond price, a princess turned into a gazelle, sword-wielding statues and shocking reversals of fortune