A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Now Entitled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night with Introductory Explanatory Notes on the Manners and Customs of Moslem Men and a Terminal Essay Upon the History of The Nights [WITH] Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night With Notes Anthropological and Explanatory [Sixteen Volume Set]

Benares: Printed by the Kamashastra Society for Private Subscribers Only, 1885. Very Good. Benares: Printed by the Kamashastra Society for Private Subscribers Only, 1885-8. First Editions, First Issue retaining copyright holder's name on title page versos. Ten volumes + six-volume supplement; large octavos; uniformly bound in publisher's black cloth, first ten volumes embossed in gilt, latter six in silver foil, top edges stained red, black glazed endpapers. Scuffing to extremities with exposure at corners, occasional shallow losses at spine ends, some of which have been expertly repaired: Vols. 1, 3, Vol. 10 and Supplementary Vols. 5 and 6 expertly recased with original spines laid down, spine titling of all six supplemental volumes effaced, ownership pressure stamps to front free endpapers, else a Very Good, sound set, uncommon in the publisher's bindings which were really not sturdy enough for such heavy textblocks.

Earliest appearance of Richard Burton's monumental translation of the Arabian Nights, published hot on the heels of his collaborator/rival John Payne. Both translations were issued in a small, private print runs, reaching an equally small readership, though Burton's version had the added benefit of "his frank treatment of the stories' sexual content [which] gave [his] translation a transgressive and exotic flavor that suited the Decadent literary spirit of his circle" (Paulo Lemos Horta, from his introduction to "The Annotated Arabian Nights" (2021)).

PENZER, pp. 114-6.