The full text of all 16 volumes of Richard Burton's monumental translation of The Arabian Nights, with all his candid, racy footnotes, with their wealth of anthropological and cultural information. According to Wikipedia: "One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of stories collected over many centuries by various authors, translators and scholars across the Middle East, North Africa and Indian subcontinent. These collections of tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature. In particular, many tales were originally folk stories from the Caliphate era as well as the Sassanid-era Pahlavi work Hazar Afsan. Though the oldest Arabic manuscript dates from the 14th century, scholarship generally dates the collection's genesis to around the 9th century." Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS (1821 - 1890) was an English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia and Africa as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages. Burton's best-known achievements include traveling in disguise to Mecca, making an unexpurgated translation of The Book of One Thousand Nights and A Night..."