Retold from: One Thousand and One Nights

“One Thousand and One Nights” is a Middle Eastern story collection that Antoine Galland brought to Europe, and the world met Aladdin in his version.

Antoine Galland (1646–1715) was an orientalist who had travelled in the Levant. He published his translation in Paris volume by volume from 1704, and twelve volumes had appeared by 1717. The French version quickly became fashionable, and other European languages translated it in turn.

The tales of Aladdin and Ali Baba were not in the Arabic manuscript Galland used. He heard them in Paris in 1709 from Hanna Diyab, a Christian from Aleppo in Syria, and wrote them down in his diary. They first appeared in print in volumes nine and ten, in 1712.

The site has “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp”: the story of a poor boy, a lamp with a genie in it, and the search for sensible courage.