Chapter 1 Introduction to the Nights; Chapter 2 Arabic Textual History of the Alf layla wa-layla; Chapter 3 English Translations of the Thousand and One Nights; Chapter 4 Reading the Arabian Nights; Chapter 5 Sheherazade/Shahraz?d: A Commentary on the Frame Tale1This Chapter makes use of a cross section rather than an exhaustive collection of frame tale variants. They are taken from the following: Muhsin Mahdi ed., Kit?b alf layla wa-layla (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984) (the Leiden text); Alf layla wa-layla (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-thaq?fiyya, 1981); W. H. Macnaghten ed., The Alif Laila, or Book of the Thousand Nights Commonly Known as the Arabian Nights Entertainments (Calcutta: W. Thacker, 1839) (the Macnaghten text); Antoine Galland trans., Les Mille et une Nuits Edouard Gauttier ed., (Paris: Didot, 1822);, Antoine Galland] The Arabian Nights Entertainments (Edinburgh: William P Nimmo,, n. d.]); Richard Burton trans., The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Burton Club,, 1885]); Edward Forster trans., The Arabian Nights (London: William Miller, 1810); Husain Haddawy trans., The Arabian Nights (London: W. W. Norton, 1990); Kit?b alf layla wa-layla (Beirut: Maktaba al-?ay?t, 1995); Kit?b alf layla wa-layla (Breslau, 1824-43); Kit?b alf layla wa-layla (Bulaq, 1835); Edward William Lane trans., The Thousand and One Nights Commonly Called the Arabian Nights Entertainments (London: Charles Knight, 1839); Enno Littmann trans., Die Erzahlungen aus den Tausendundein Nachten (1953; Frankfurt: Insel-Verlag, 1976); Powys Mathers trans., The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night Translated from French of J. C. Mardrus. (London: Routledge, 1953); John Payne trans., The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (Villon Society,, 1884]). Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are from Payne's translation.; Chapter 6 Readings of Selected Stories and Anecdotes;