Though BurtonвЂ™s original edition featured no pictures in order to avoid prosecution for obscenity, shortly after his death in 1890 a young friend and admirer of his by the name of Albert Letchford, who had trained in Paris as an orientalist painter, created 70 paintings, which eventually became the basis for the next edition of BurtonвЂ™s translation. It wasnвЂ™t until the 1885-1888 publication of Richard BurtonвЂ™s sixteen-volume translation that themes of sexuality emerged, complete with extensive notes on topics like homosexuality, bestiality, and castration. Illustration by Walter Crane, 1878.Д®ven though the editions since LaneвЂ™s scholarly translation had progressed in the realm of visual imagination, the content had remained rather sterilized and prudish. They themselves employ drawingвЂ¦ as a kind of picture writing and eagerly follow a pictured story.вЂќ ~ Walter Crane AladdinвЂ™s Picture Book Arabian Nights. They can accept symbolic representations. They donвЂ™t want to bother with three dimensions. They prefer well-designed forms and bright frank colour. Crane was also among the first to consider the visual tastes of children, reining in a new era of designing storytelling for young readers.Д¬hildren, like ancient Egyptians, appear to see things in profile, and like definite statements in design. The first color take on the tales came Walter Crane in his 1876 AladdinвЂ™s Picture Book. Titled DalzielвЂ™s Illustrated Arabian Nights Entertainments, it featured engravings by a number of notable artists from the era, including perhaps most notably Sir John Tenniel, famous for his whimsical and brilliantly comical illustrations for Lewis CarrollвЂ™s AliceвЂ™s Adventures in Wonderland, published that same year. The first unabashedly imaginative edition of the Victorian age came in 1865. Lane, who aspired to make the text an educational introduction to everyday life in the Middle East, hired acclaimed British engraver William Harvey to do the artwork and saw to its accuracy by giving Harvey historical engravings of Egyptian and Moorish architecture to copy, approaching the project as an educational primer rather than a visual journey of the imagination. It wasnвЂ™t until the 1839-1841 publication of The Thousand and One Nights, translated by ethnographer Edward William Lane, who had spent several years in Egypt himself, that the stories began to reflect the Arab world with respectable accuracy. In the subsequent decades, other artists took a similarly hazy approach to exoticism. Other stories occupy the smaller frames, including вЂThe fisherman and the jinn.вЂ™ Illustration by Dutch artist David Coster, 1714. Shahrazad tells her story to Shahryar, while her sister Dunyazad is listening. Though the first edition of Arabian Nights contained no pictures, the late 18th century saw a flourishing of illustrated editions, the first of which were almost comically amiss in their visual depictions of Arab culture, most notably a widely pirated 1714 edition with engravings by Dutch artist David Coster, who had no grasp of the cultural differences between medieval European and Islamic cultures, so he portrayed the characters in European dress, on European furniture, amidst European architecture.

Visions of the Jinn: Illustrators of the Arabian Nights is a remarkable tome that applies a similar lens to another infinitely influential piece of timeless storytelling, whose impact spans from the poetry of Goethe and Rilke to the contemporary fiction of Borges and Proust to the visuals and narratives of video games. A suspense that has kept generations of readers вЂ“ both Eastern and Western - spellbound.Among 2011вЂ™s best sort-of-childrenвЂ™s books was a magnificent volume culling the best illustrations from 130 years of Brothers Grimm fairy tales - a visual history of some of the most memorable storytelling ever published. On this adventure from India to Paris via Egypt, the Persian Gulf and the Maghreb, we encounter strange creatures and enchanted places along the way.Д«ut what are the origins of the fantastical figures that haunt the Arabian Nights, and whose adventures set the tempo of the talesвЂ™ suspense? A suspense that is maintained throughout the tales, and enabled the beautiful storyteller Scheherazade to escape the death sentence the sultan ordered every sunrise.

The journey recounts their wonder of the Tales, returns to their origins, deciphers their hidden meanings, and examines what effect they have on the human psyche. This film is an invitation to travel and plunges us into the universal imaginary world of the Tales. A dreamlike journey to (re)discover the Tales of the Arabian Nights: an enchanting immersion into a bountiful book - from India to Egypt, from the Maghreb to Paris.

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