Résumé
Résumé de Les Mille et Une Nuits : leurs plus beaux contes
Go deeper: the whole of Les Mille et Une Nuits : leurs plus beaux contes
About 7 h 30 min to read.À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who love genies, magic lamps, clever heroes, sea voyages, tricksters, and thieves will enjoy these tales within tales, and the stories behind famous names.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Picture a poor fisherman on a dark shore before dawn. He hauls up a heavy copper jar, breaks the seal, and watches smoke pour out and harden into a giant who vows to kill his rescuer.
That scene is one doorway into The Arabian Nights, tales from the Middle East, Persia, and India, told over many centuries by many voices. This collection gathers the best-known ones, from Aladdin and Ali Baba to Sinbad the sailor. A short poem by Tennyson opens the book in Baghdad in the golden days of Haroun Alraschid. Under the wonders lie plain questions about luck, greed, loyalty, and quick thinking.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Three sisters make wishes and a queen suffersFree
- 2A princess outwits the mountain of voices
- 3A fisherman wins his life with one clever test
- 4Four colored fish lead a sultan to a castle
- 5A lazy boy meets a false uncle and a lamp
- 6Aladdin wins a princess and builds a palace
- 7Ali Baba learns the thieves' secret word
- 8Sinbad turns hardship into seven voyages
- 9Greed and luck decide fates across the tales
- 10Stories nest inside stories like boxes
Point clé 1 sur 10
Three sisters make wishes and a queen suffers
Emperor Kosrouschah of Persia likes to walk his city at night in disguise with his grand vizier. Outside a poor house, he hears three sisters playing a game of wishes. The eldest wants the sultan's baker, the second wants the chief cook, and the youngest wants to be the emperor's queen and bear a prince with gold hair on one side and silver on the other.
The emperor grants all three wishes. The older sisters cannot bear it. When the queen is expecting, they offer to serve as nurses and set each baby adrift in a canal. They tell the emperor she has borne a puppy, then a cat, then a log of wood. In his rage he shuts her in a shed at the mosque gate, where every worshipper must scorn her.
The babies do not drown. The intendant of the royal gardens, who has always wanted children, raises the two princes and the princess as his own.
Small envy sets a whole disaster moving, and one stranger's pity quietly carries the story forward.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Go deeper: the whole of Les Mille et Une Nuits : leurs plus beaux contes
About 7 h 30 min to read.Who’s who
- Princess Periezade
- A brave, clever girl raised in a garden keeper's house, she sets out to win a bird, a tree, and a water that will complete her home.
- The Fisherman
- An old, poor man who casts his net four times a day and hauls up a copper jar holding a furious genie.
- Gulnare of the Sea
- A silent beauty sold to a childless king, she belongs to a family of sea folk who walk under the waves.
- Aladdin
- A tailor's idle son in China who retrieves a magic lamp and wants to marry the sultan's daughter.
- Princess Badroulboudour
- The sultan's daughter, seen at the baths by Aladdin, who is drawn into the contest over the lamp.
- Ali Baba
- A poor Persian woodcutter who overhears the thieves' password and tries to keep their treasure secret from his envious brother.
- Morgiana
- Quick, bold, and loyal, she is the household slave who spots every trap laid for her master.
- Sinbad the Sailor
- A Baghdad merchant who keeps setting out on voyages, surviving disaster each time, and tells his tales to Hindbad.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 116,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 7 h 40 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about Les Mille et Une Nuits : leurs plus beaux contes
What is The Arabian Nights about?
It is a collection of stories from the Middle East, Persia, and India, full of genies, thieves, magic lamps, sea kings, and sailors. Each tale follows a hero through danger, and the stories often nest inside one another.
Which stories are in this collection?
It includes the Talking Bird, the Singing Tree, and the Golden Water, the Fisherman and the Genie, Gulnare of the Sea, Aladdin, Prince Agib, the City of Brass, Ali Baba, Codadad, and Sinbad's seven voyages.
Who wrote The Arabian Nights?
No single person wrote it. The tales grew out of oral storytelling over many centuries. This collection was prepared by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith from the best-known tales.
What does Open, Sesame mean?
It is the secret password that opens the thieves' cave in the Ali Baba story. Sesame is a grain, and the captain says the phrase to make a hidden door in the rock swing open.
Is The Arabian Nights easy to read?
The tales are told in plain language with clear action, short scenes, and memorable heroes. Each story stands on its own, so you can read them one at a time, in any order, with real pleasure.
Cite this edition
Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith. The Arabian Nights: Their Best-known Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-arabian-nights-their-best-known-tales.
Wiggin, K. D. S. (2026). The Arabian Nights: Their best-known tales. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-arabian-nights-their-best-known-tales
Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith. The Arabian Nights: Their Best-known Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-arabian-nights-their-best-known-tales.
@book{wiggin2026arabian,
author = {Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith},
title = {The Arabian Nights: Their Best-known Tales},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-arabian-nights-their-best-known-tales}
}
