{"id":19707,"date":"2023-11-03T17:15:03","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T17:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/?p=19707"},"modified":"2026-01-01T16:11:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T16:11:02","slug":"sir-richard-burtons-arabian-nights-by-dr-amy-matthewson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/sir-richard-burtons-arabian-nights-by-dr-amy-matthewson\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Richard Burton\u2019s Arabian Nights – by Dr. Amy Matthewson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Richard Burton\u2019s Arabian Night<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

What makes a good translation of a literary work? Is it faithfulness to the work, despite awkwardness or potential risk of making the reader feel lost in translation? Or is it the ability to engage a new audience with language and content that is culturally appropriate, even if not entirely accurate?<\/p>\n

These questions, and no doubt more, must have entered the head of Sir Richard Burton (1821\u20131890) while translating The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night<\/em>, volume 1 on display now at the Royal Asiatic Society\u2019s \u201cExtraordinary Endeavours\u201d exhibition at the Brunei Gallery.<\/p>\n

A photograph of Richard Burton, writer, explorer, polyglot, can be found on the exhibition wall to the left of the case containing his translated book. He claimed to give readers a word-for-word translation from the original stories. His Translator\u2019s Foreword in volume 1 explains, \u201cThese volumes, moreover, afford me a long-sought opportunity of noticing practices and customs which interest all mankind and which \u2018Society\u2019 will not hear mentioned.\u201d Burton laments how \u201c\u2019Propriety\u2019 cried us down with her brazen blatant voice, and the weak-kneed brethren fell away\u201d (p. XVIII).<\/p>\n

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With these declarations, Burton\u2019s 1885 translations emphasized the sexual elements of the original stories and Victorian restrictions on obscene publications meant his edition had to be published by subscription only. His wife, Isabel Burton, responded by sanitising his work and offered an edition that the entire family can enjoy, without causing anyone to blush.<\/p>\n

Burton\u2019s voluminous translations are bounded in stunning black cloth with gold total design on the front. A complete set, all 12 original editions is rare to find but a complete set does exist, sitting in the archives at the Royal Asiatic Society.<\/p>\n

Next to Burton\u2019s translation on display at the Brunei Gallery is an illustration titled, \u2018The Sultan\u2019s first sight of Alla Ad Deen\u2019s Palace.\u2019 This illustration by Stanley Llewellyn Wood (1866\u20131928) is only 1 of 100 scenes designed to be inserted into translations of the Arabian Nights. The illustrations, like Burton\u2019s books and Lady Burton\u2019s less scandalous editions, can all be viewed upon request.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sir Richard Burton\u2019s Arabian Night What makes a good translation of a literary work? Is it faithfulness to the work, despite awkwardness or potential risk of making the reader feel lost in translation? Or is it the ability to engage a new audience with language and content that is culturally appropriate, even if not entirely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":19854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[508],"tags":[2409,2410,2289,2400,2407,772,2408,2835],"class_list":["post-19707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collection-highlights","tag-arabian-nights","tag-book-of-one-thousand-and-a-night","tag-brunei-gallery","tag-extraordinary-endeavours","tag-lady-isabel-burton","tag-richard-burton","tag-stanley-wood","tag-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19707"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19855,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19707\/revisions\/19855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}