The Influence of The Arabian Nights on English Literary Culture in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This paper examines the reception and influence of The Arabian Nights on English literature and travel writing during the nineteenth century. Beginning with Antoine Galland’s landmark French translation (1704–1717) and its rapid dissemination across Europe, the study traces how this collection of oriental folk tales transformed from an object of aristocratic curiosity into an authoritative cultural and ethnographic resource. The paper argues that The Arabian Nights served a dual function in the English literary imagination: as a generative source of narrative inspiration for fiction writers, and as an ostensibly reliable guide to the manners, customs, and domestic life of ‘Oriental’ peoples. Drawing on a range of primary sources—including travel accounts, editorial prefaces, translations, and literary works—the study demonstrates how travellers, editors, and novelists alike appealed to The Arabian Nights to authenticate their representations of the East. The paper concludes by reflecting critically on the ideological implications of this process, noting that the conflation of literary fantasy with ethnographic fact contributed to a romanticised and ultimately distorting image of the Orient that persists into the present.