The copy I possess is the Arlington Edition of Oriental Fairy Tales by Hurst & Co. in New York. There is no copyright date, but it does have a signature in the front and a date of 1893 so I can safely say that the date is circa 1893.
While researching the German translators Herder, Liebeskind, and Krummacher, I came across something interesting, the book has been published three times previously to this edition.
It was published in 1858-59 by Stanford and Delisser as Oriental Tales of Fairyland with illustrations by R.S. Bross. Again in 1861 and 1868 by James Miller as The Magic Ring, and other Oriental Fairy Tales. And then again around 1893 by Hurst & Co. as Oriental Fairy Tales, Arlington Edition.
The only differences between the first publication in 1858-59 and the other editions is the exclusion of the translator’s note at the beginning of the book and the addition of four chapters to the other editions, The Journey, El Rakham, The King and the Goatherd, and The Fairy Barque along with an addition of an introduction by Oberon and Titania. Otherwise the editions are also identical in title layout and most certainly in the end notes, which have been copied word for word from the 1858-59 edition.
I could not find an illustration example for the 1861 or 1868 editions, but I presume all the illustrators would have been different in each edition to give an incentive for a customer to purchase the book. There is no notation of who illustrated the etchings for the 1893 edition, but they range in quality from that of the lovely frontispiece to smaller ones that are hastily executed.
I researched each of the publishers of the books through the various years. I found evidence of the first edition in 1858-59 and those in 1861 and 1868, but I could find little to nothing on the edition from 1893.
Usually when you research The Magic Ring edition you come up with the 1861 edition, but I ran across something in another book that made me realize that they might have been another edition in 1868. I found a copy of The American Boy’s Life of Washington by Mrs. Anna M. Hyde that was published by James Miller in 1868, which had an advertisement for The Magic Ring book.
“The Magic Ring, and other Oriental Fairy Tales, Illustrated – The same simplicity of style and elegance of language, which have rendered the ‘Arabian Nights’ so justly popular, will be found in the above book, which the Publisher now offers, and which will, he is confident, when better known, take rank amongst our most Popular Juvenile Literature.”
With that in mind, it makes me wonder if the 1861 version did not sell particularly well at all and the publisher felt that people might be more inclined to pick up the book again in 1868 with the interest in the Arabian Nights stories (which were published in English for the first time one hundred and sixty-two years earlier in 1706).
Another misnomer is the title ‘Oriental Fairy Tales’ as it takes on an entirely different meaning for readers in the 21st century. Whereas we consider ‘Oriental’ to mean any East Asian country, in the case of these editions from the 19th century, it is used to refer to any country in the East.
Throughout history, the countries of England and Europe were influenced by the East whether it was through commerce, conquest, or the exposure to other styles of art and architecture in those countries through travel. The Renaissance saw an embrace of various cultures through contact with the Islamic world and the Ottoman Empire. Exposure to these Eastern countries would continue from the Renaissance into the 19th century with influences in style throughout the period such as Turquerie, Chinoiserie, and Japonisme (the latter two styles became extremely popular in the 19th century due to ‘opening’ of those countries to trade).
The term ‘Orientalism’ was used in the 19th century to describe the style of art that depicted the Middle East and North African cultures. Writers of the period, such as Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Emerson, and Poe, were not immune to the influence of the Oriental and dabbled during the period with stories of the East. ‘Orientalism’ was not used to describe writers who wrote of the East as many wrote a range of stories throughout their careers that did not center on that theme.
While researching some of the titles of the stories, I came across a few of them in magazines of the mid-19th century, namely the tales of ‘The Dream of Almet’ and ‘The Vision of Bossaldab’ in American publication, The National Magazine in 1852 and Sharpe’s London Magazine of Entertainment and Instruction for General Reading in 1846.
The stories within the book are not necessarily fairy tales as we would term them today; most of the stories include magical elements, but only a few with actual fairies. In these stories, the magical element to the stories is usually the appearance of a guardian or spirit from the Heavens who is sent as a messenger to address a grievance and show why a misfortune has happened.
One of my favorite stories in the collection is 'El Rakham or the Marriage Collar.' It tells the story of Aboulhassan, an evil sorcerer who was known for changing shape into various creatures, most often a large vulture, whereas he became known as ‘El Rakham’ by the villagers near his castle. He becomes enchanted with two sisters from the nearby village, Habbemah and Nefesa. He decides to make the younger sister his wife and concocts a plan to capture Nefesa and bring her to his castle. He eventually carries her off to his castle as a vulture and when she awakes, gives her a choice. If he can win her heart in a week they will be married, but if for any reason she doesn’t agree, she can stab him in the heart and flee. Of course, there is a catch; he cannot die unless struck in a secret place on his body which he guards carefully. He showers Nefesa with jewels, dresses, and other riches and makes himself agreeable to her family with the same gifts and promises.
At the end of the week, Nefesa decides to marry the sorcerer and during the marriage ceremony, he gives her a beautiful filigree collar of gold. He puts one collar on himself and the other on his wife and tells her that the collars are magical and that if one of them dies, then the other will die at the same time as well. Like any sensible person, Nefesa is alarmed by this prospect, but eventually forgets about the sorcerer’s warning.
Their marriage does not remain blissful, the sorcerer becomes increasingly cruel to his wife. After a failed attempt by her cousin to kill the sorcerer, Nefesa tells her remaining cousin how to kill her husband the next time she visits her family. He comes to challenge the sorcerer and beheads him in a duel. Throwing the sorcerer’s head in a river, he then stabs the sorcerer in the base of his spine and he dies. At the same time, Nefesa is killed by the marriage collar around her neck.
Though this tale does not have a lot of similarities to Perrault’s Bluebeard, I was reminded of that tale while reading El Rakham. Some of the similarities are the choice of two sisters, the beheading of the husband by a member of the wife’s family, and the curiosity of the wife that almost leads to her death (in the case of El Rahkam, the wife is ultimately killed from the sin of treachery).
Overall, I found this collection of stories to be an interesting insight into Arabian literature. My only regret is the fact that many of the origins of the stories were not mentioned by the translators. The notes at the end of the book were mostly definitions of terms such as religious holidays and those used for rulers and holy men. I know there are research materials on Arabian folklore and fairy tales in academia, but unfortunately my local universities do not have those materials as that type of literature is rarely taught in the English departments. What I wouldn’t give for a good university nearby that had a stellar folklore/fairy tale section!
Wow...the librarian comes out! hehe Do you like doing this sort of research?
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