The Arabian Nights' Entertainments Book Value Guide

This antique edition of The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, published by the A. L. Burt Company between 1890 and 1920, represents a significant era in American mass-market publishing. These volumes are highly collectible for their decorative cloth bindings and their role in bringing ancient Middle Eastern, Persian, and Indian folklore to Western households during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

What Is The Arabian Nights' Entertainments Book Worth?

The typical price range for The Arabian Nights' Entertainments Book is $40 - $60 based on recent sales. However, values can vary depending on the item's condition, rarity, and other factors such as:

• The physical condition of the cloth binding, specifically the preservation of gilt detailing and lack of fraying at the spine ends.
• The presence of original illustrations or a decorative frontispiece, which adds significant aesthetic value to A. L. Burt reprints.
• The overall state of the internal pages, including the level of foxing, tanning, or any previous owner inscriptions.
• Market demand for early American editions of Islamic Golden Age literature within the $40 to $60 price range.

How to Identify The Arabian Nights' Entertainments Book?

• Check the spine and title page for the 'A. L. Burt Company' imprint, a hallmark of this prominent New York publisher.
• Examine the cover for the characteristic decorative cloth binding often featuring gilt lettering or period-specific embossed designs.
• Verify the era by looking for the absence of an ISBN and the presence of early 20th-century typography and paper stock.
• Look for the inclusion of classic tales like 'One Thousand and One Nights' which distinguish this specific compilation of folklore.

History of The Arabian Nights' Entertainments Book

Also known as 'One Thousand and One Nights', 'The Arabian Nights' is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales and stories compiled during the Islamic Golden Age. The tales themselves are rooted in ancient Arabian, Persian, Indian, and Egyptian folklore, with the earliest manuscripts dating back to the 9th century. They were first introduced to the Western world in the early 18th century through Antoine Galland's French translation. The A. L. Burt Company was a prominent American publisher known for reprinting popular works, making classic literature accessible to a wider audience in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.