Every night for three years the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with a different virgin, executing her next morning. To end this brutal pattern and to save her own life, the vizier's daughter, Shahrazad, begins to tell the king tales of adventure, love, riches and wonder - tales of mystical lands peopled with princes and hunchbacks, the Angel of Death and magical spirits, tales of the voyages of Sindbad, of Ali Baba's outwitting a band of forty thieves and of jinnis trapped in rings and in lamps.One of the best known and most influential works of literature ever written, this is the first complete translation into English of The Arabian Nights from the Arabic since the 1880s. It also includes new translations from 18th century French of the so-called 'orphan stories', for which no original Arabic text remains.