It is one of the oldest myths in the history of storytelling: a powerful Arabian king - furious at his wife's infidelity- orders up and kills a slave girl every night. Then he meets the mysterious and brilliant Scheherazade, who tells him an unfinished story before bed, promising to reveal the ending of the tale on the following evening (and thus keeping herself alive for another day).

What emerged from this legendary origin story is an amorphous series of stories now known as "One Thousand and One Nights," that have been drawn from hundreds of legends and myths across the Arab world. The full collection, which numbers from over two hundred to as much a thousand-and-one tales, is an amalgam of every imaginable type of tall tale from the golden age of Islam.

Collected in this volume are a handful of the most famous and beloved tales from "One Thousand and One Nights," including the best known of these stories: "Aladdin and His Lamp," "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" as well as the seven voyages of Sinbad. An additional ten stories are also included, each as timeless as when they were first collected.

"The Best of the Arabian Nights" also includes a Prologue by Kate Douglas Wiggin, a literary scholar and expert on Arab folklore.