12 h 50 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 12 h 50 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the next story you tell is the only thing keeping you alive?
Scheherazade marries the dangerous King Shahryar and keeps herself alive by telling stories night after night. Within this frame, The Arabian Nights: Their Best-known Tales opens a world of peril, magic and quick thinking. These familiar tales belong to a storytelling tradition rooted in the Middle East, Persia and India.
Sinbad the Sailor recounts voyages across dangerous seas. Aladdin, a poor boy who avoids learning a trade, gains a lamp with a servant spirit. Ali Baba, a woodcutter, overhears the words that open a robbers’ cave. Treasure promises a different life, but greed, deception and curiosity bring dangers that wealth alone cannot solve.
What you’ll discover
- Stories that sustain life Meet Scheherazade, whose clever storytelling keeps her alive in a dangerous king’s company.
- Sinbad’s dangerous seas Follow a Baghdad merchant through strange creatures, hard-won profit and the pull of another voyage.
- Aladdin’s hidden power Discover a lamp, a servant spirit and a scheming stranger who wants that power.
- Ali Baba’s secret cave Step toward hidden treasure, then meet Morgiana, whose quick thinking protects Ali Baba’s family.
- Wonder with good sense Enjoy humour and magic alongside questions about greed, luck and what people do with treasure.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Three sisters make wishes and a queen suffers
- A princess outwits the mountain of voices
- A fisherman wins his life with one clever test
- Four colored fish lead a sultan to a castle
- A lazy boy meets a false uncle and a lamp
- Aladdin wins a princess and builds a palace
- Ali Baba learns the thieves' secret word
- Sinbad turns hardship into seven voyages
- Greed and luck decide fates across the tales
- Stories nest inside stories like boxes
Who’s who
- Princess PeriezadeA 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 FishermanAn old, poor man who casts his net four times a day and hauls up a copper jar holding a furious genie.
- Gulnare of the SeaA silent beauty sold to a childless king, she belongs to a family of sea folk who walk under the waves.
- AladdinA tailor's idle son in China who retrieves a magic lamp and wants to marry the sultan's daughter.
- Princess BadroulboudourThe sultan's daughter, seen at the baths by Aladdin, who is drawn into the contest over the lamp.
- Ali BabaA poor Persian woodcutter who overhears the thieves' password and tries to keep their treasure secret from his envious brother.
- MorgianaQuick, bold, and loyal, she is the household slave who spots every trap laid for her master.
- Sinbad the SailorA Baghdad merchant who keeps setting out on voyages, surviving disaster each time, and tells his tales to Hindbad.
Formats and delivery
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Arabian Nights: Their Best-known Tales
by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin; Nora Archibald Smith (editor)
A poor fisherman frees a genie who swears to kill him, and one clever trick changes everything.
Medium level10–20 hours to readEnglish
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In short
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.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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- 15-minute summary
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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}
}
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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.
The author
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
1856–1923 · American children's writer
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin (1856–1923) was an American writer and teacher. She was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Maine. She later lived in San Francisco, where she worked in kindergarten education. Her books include Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903) and Penelope’s Irish Experiences (1901). She died in England.
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