Description
On the shrouded corpse hung a tablet of green topaz with the inscription: 'I am Shaddad the Great. I conquered a thousand cities; a thousand white elephants were collected for me; I lived for a thousand years and my kingdom covered both east and west, but when death came to me nothing of all that I had gathered was of any avail. You who see me take heed: for Time is not to be trusted.'
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. 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.Author: Malcolm C. Lyons
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 06/13/2017
Pages: 496
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.00w x 1.10d
ISBN13: 9780241299951
ISBN10: 0241299950
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology
- Fiction | Classics
- Fiction | Anthologies (multiple authors)
About the Author
Malcolm C. Lyons is also the translator of the Penguin Classics edition of the complete Arabian Nights. He was Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University and is a life fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is one of the world's leading experts on classical Arabic literature. Robert Irwin's books include For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies, The Middle East in the Middle Ages, The Arabian Nights: A Companion and (as editor) The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabian Literature. He also introduced and edited the Penguin Classics Arabian Nights.