Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange: The First English Translation of a Medieval Arab Fantasy Collection

By Anonymous and Malcolm C. Lyons

Book Overview

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, this is the earliest known collection of Arabic 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. To read these stories today is an extraordinary experience - they were designed to enchant and delight a society almost fantastically distant from our own and now, centuries later, they can be marvelled at in all their strangeness. 'Superb translation . . . erudite introduction . . . a revelation - a real classic of popular literature . . . endlessly diverting and inventive, (giving) a unique insight into a now-lost elegant, courtly and tolerant Arab world.' William Dalrymple Sunday Times 'Offers a gateway to a different world of language and ideas, florid, wildly descriptive and are a powerful reminder of the human need for story . . . irresistible.' Independent 'This book is an astonishment . . . a profound oddity, but an absolutely intriguing one.' Scotland on Sunday 'Instantly appealing (with) headlong narrative drive . . . like a Medieval Fifty Shades of Grey . . . above all, fun.' Guardian

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0141395036
• ISBN13: 9780141395036
• Release Date: February 2015
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.2" x 9.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher