Penguin to publish new translation of complete Arabian Nights: E-book version someday?
By Paul Biba
Penguin will be releasing the first full translation of Arabian Nights in 120 years.
It will be a luxury 3 volume edition, each volume about 1,000 pages, and will cost 125 Pounds and limited to 3,000 copies, according to The Bookseller.
Adam Freudenheim, Penguin Classics publisher, said the scale of the project, which involved translating around one million words across three volumes, merited giving it the luxury treatment. "The sheer scale of the translation meant we couldn’t publish it in one volume," he said. "Two volumes would have been stretching the binding capacity to the fullest extent. Once we realised we would have to publish three volumes it automatically became something special."
I hope that the Penguin version will be as "unexpurgated" as the Burton translation, which I own. I put Penguin on notice that I want a copy of this edition!!!! Please release it here in the States—ideally in both E and P someday! If there must be a limit, could it apply only to the paper edition? Given the bulk of the work, an e-book edition would really be handy.
Update: Couldn’t wait. Just pre-ordered it from Amazon UK, who is selling it for 75 Pounds.
Leave a Reply