Galland - Les Mille et une Nuits - 1840

ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS – MONUMENTAL ILLUSTRATED EDITION IN 3 ROMANTIC VOLUMES
One of the most spectacular French nineteenth-century editions of One Thousand and One Nights: three richly illustrated volumes, in the famous translation by Antoine Galland, revised from the princely edition of 1704 and accompanied by the dissertation of Baron Silvestre de Sacy. Magnificent uniform romantic binding with green spines richly decorated in gold and marbleized boards.

ABSTRACT
Les Mille et une Nuits. Contes arabes constitutes one of the monuments of world literature and one of the texts that most profoundly contributed to the birth of the European Orientalist imaginary. This Paris edition by Ernest Bourdin & Cie reissues the historic French translation by Antoine Galland, the first that made the Thousand and One Nights famous in Europe, declared revised and corrected from the original 1704 edition. The apparatus is enriched by the Dissertation sur les Mille et une Nuits by the great Orientalist Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy and, above all, by a vast cycle of illustrations entrusted, according to the title page, to the “meilleurs artistes français et étrangers.” The layout, the large plates, the vignettes, the portraits, the title pages and the numerous illustrations inserted in the text make it a typical and sumptuous product of French Romantic publishing.

REASONS FOR COLLECTING
ROMANTIC ILLUSTRATED EDITION – Important nineteenth-century Paris edition characterized by a particularly rich and scenographic iconographic apparatus.
ANTOINE GALLAND – Text in the historic translation that introduced Le mille et une nuits to European readers and decisively contributed to the Western fortune of the work.
SILVESTRE DE SACY – Enriched by the dissertation of the celebrated French Orientalist, a fundamental figure in the study of Arab and Oriental studies of the Nineteenth Century.
THREE VOLUMES IN UNIFORM BINDING – A fascinating decorative ensemble with green spines stamped in gold and marbleized boards, particularly suitable for a library of literature, orientalism and illustrated books.

MARKET VALUE
Indicative market value: €400–600. Important and sought-after Romantic edition of One Thousand and One Nights, published by Ernest Bourdin in 1840 in three volumes and illustrated in the first printing with a vast array of engravings. The presence of the complete set of three volumes and the beautiful contemporary gold-decorated romantic binding increases the specimen’s appeal.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Uniform nineteenth-century half-green leather bindings with boards covered in marbleized paper; smooth spines richly ornamented in gold with the title MILLE ET UNE NUITS and volume numbering. Illustrated edition with numerous in-text and out-of-text engravings, vignettes, title pieces, portraits and large decorative compositions, executed from drawings by numerous French and foreign artists. The bindings show some wear, abrasions and superficial losses, ends and edges with normal signs of use. Internally there are some foxing and physiological browning and stains. In old books with a long history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. This listing contains AI Visualizations. The images are an integral part of the description. Pp.:
Vol I: (2); 8; 480; 2nn; (2).
Vol II: (2); 4nn; 574; (2).
Vol II: (2); 4nn; 482; 2nn; (2).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Les Mille et une Nuits. 3 volumes.
Paris, Ernest Bourdin Éditeur, [circa 1840].
Translated by Antoine Galland.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The advent of Galland’s translation at the beginning of the eighteenth century marked a fundamental event in the history of European reception of Oriental literature. Published originally in Paris from 1704, its version achieved enormous success and contributed to the diffusion of characters and stories that entered permanently into Western imagination. In the nineteenth century, romantic interest in the Orient determined a new publishing season for the work: luxury editions in which text and images competed to create a fantastic, exotic and spectacular representation of the Orient. The Bourdin edition fully belongs to this season and is distinguished by the quantity and variety of illustrations and by its refined typographic layout.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE TRANSLATOR
Antoine Galland (1646–1715) was a French Orientalist, antiquarian and translator. A master of Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian and Turkish, he spent long periods in the Eastern Mediterranean and worked on manuscripts, inscriptions and antiquities. His fame is inextricably linked to the translation of One Thousand and One Nights, published from 1704 to 1717 and destined to become the main entry point of the work into European culture. Galland’s version was not a mere linguistic operation: his elegant and narratively effective style profoundly influenced the form in which the West understood for generations the great Arab narrative cycle.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The French translation by Galland first appeared from 1704, giving rise to extraordinary European publishing success and countless reissues and translations. This Bourdin edition belongs to the great era of the Parisian illustrated book and explicitly states that it has been “revue et corrigée sur l’édition princeps de 1704.” Of particular note is the inclusion of Silvestre de Sacy’s dissertation, which adds an important historical and Orientalist contribution to the literary dimension of the work.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Antoine Galland, Les Mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français, Paris, 1704–1717; Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, Dissertation sur les Mille et une Nuits; Ernest Bourdin et Cie, Les Mille et une Nuits. Contes arabes, Paris, edizione illustrata; Bibliothèque nationale de France, bibliographic catalogs relating to the French editions of One Thousand and One Nights and Galland’s translation.