''Le livre des mille nuits et une nuit'' (English: ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'') is a 12-volume French translation of ''

One Thousand and One Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

'' by

J. C. Mardrus Joseph Charles Mardrus, otherwise known as "Jean-Charles Mardrus" (1868–1949), was a French physician, poet, and a noted translator. Today he is best known for his translation of the ''Thousand and One Nights'' from Arabic language, Arabic into ...

. The volumes, 298×228 mm each, were published in 1926–1932 by the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

publisher L’Edition d’Art H. Piazza. With

Morocco leather Morocco leather (also known as Levant, the French Maroquin, or German Saffian from Safi, Morocco, Safi, a Moroccan town famous for leather) is a Vegetable tanning, vegetable-tanned leather known for its softness, pliability, and ability to take c ...

covers, the book sides were decorated with a gilt-stamped panel with oriental design different for each volume. The volumes were also decorated with gilt fleurons, triple gilt

fillet Fillet may refer to: *Annulet (architecture), part of a column capital, also called a fillet *Fillet (aircraft), a fairing smoothing the airflow at a joint between two components *Fillet (clothing), a headband *Fillet (cut), a piece of meat *Fille ...

and blind-stamped filet on the inside, as well as red watered silk endleaves. The volumes feature the illustrations of the French artist

Léon Carré Léon Georges Jean-Baptiste Carré (23 June 1878 – 2 December 1942) was a French Orientalism, Orientalist painter and illustrator, noted for illustrating the book, ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.'' Life and career Carré was born i ...

and the cover art by

Mohammed Racim Mohammed Racim ( ar, محمد راسم, 24 June 189630 March 1975) was an Algerian artist who founded the Algerian School for Miniature Painting with his brother, Omar. It still exists to this day.. Biography Racim was born in The Casbah of A ...

, with binding work by René Aussourd. Racim spent eight years designing the cover art for the volumes. The volumes also contain the illustrated titles of each tale in Arabic on separate pages, following their French titles. The print run consists of 2,500 numbered copies. Soviet and Russian scholar Isaak Filshtinsky, however, considered Mardrus' translation inferior to others due to presence of chunks of text, which Mardrus conceived himself to satisfy tastes of his time.

References

External links

*' {{Authority control Book series introduced in 1926 French-language works One Thousand and One Nights Translations into French 1920s books 1930s books