(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Full of mischief and valor, ribaldry and romance, The Arabian Nights is a work that has enthralled readers for centuries. The origins of The Arabian Nights are obscure. About a thousand years ago a vast number of stories in Arabic from various countries began to be brought together; only much later was the collection called The Arabian Nights or the Thousand and One Nights.

The Arabian Nights II: Sindbad and Other Popular Stories (Everyman's Library)

Literature & Fiction

Everyman's Library

United States

Everyman"s Library

John Drury's clear, marvelously erudite, and richly detailed introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of The New Testament reminds us why the King James Version, first published in 1611, has been the favorite of English readers for centuries. Despite a plethora of new translations in the second half of the twentieth century, the King James Version retains its power and appeal because "it has the intrinsic value of a classic and is an enduring masterpiece." Drury outlines the fascinating history of this magisterial translation, marveling at the "patient generosity" with which the translators sifted through and distilled a century of previous scholarship. He points out that their work has endured not only because of the astonishing care they took to reflect faithfully the syntax of the original Hebrew and Greek–which enabled them to dispense with the densely entangled prose style that characterized English writing at the time–but also because of their concern to writers from Milton to Coleridge to George Eliot. From the doctrinal richness of the letters of St. Paul to those four masterpieces of storytelling, the Gospels, The New Testament has served as a source of inspiration for centuries. To quote George Steiner on the centrality of the Bible: "What you have in hand is not a book. It is the book. That, of course, is what 'Bible' means. It is the book which, not only in Western humanity, defines the concept of a text. All our other books, however different in matter or method, relate, be it indirectly, to this book of books…All other books are inhabited by the murmur of that distant source."

The New Testament: The King James Version (Everyman's Library)

History & Criticism

In his introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of the Old Testament in the King James Version, George Steiner reminds us of the literary grandeur, uniqueness, and centrality of the Bible. "What you have in hand is not a book. It is the book. That, of course, is what 'Bible' means. It is the book which, not only in Western humanity, defines the concept of a text. All our other books, however different in matter or method, relate, be it indirectly, to this book of books... "All other books, be they histories, narrations of the imaginary, codes of law, moral treatises, lyric poems, dramatic dialogues, theological-philosophic meditations, are like sparks, often, to be sure, distant, tossed by an incessant breath from a central fire. In the Western condition, but also in other parts of the planet to which the 'Good Book' has been taken, the Bible largely informs our historical and social identity... "No other book is like it; all other books are inhabited by the murmer of that distant source." Steiner underlines, as well, our great good fortune in being able to read the Bible—which has been translated in whole or in part into more than two thousand languages—in the resplendent language of seventeenth-century England. "This is the instrument of Spenser, of Shakespeare, of Bacon, of Donne and the young Milton. It encompasses the organblasts of the Queen's rhetoric, Sidney's intimacies of desire, the 'lapidary lightness' of Ben Jonson, and the compaction of the early Metaphysical poets. It can command, seduce, enchant, and think aloud as never before or since...There could not have been a moment, a climate of feeling and general discourse, more apt to engender the two foremost constructs in the language: Shakespeare and the King James Version."

The Old Testament (Everyman's Library)

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Everyman's Library. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Everyman's Library