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  • Published: 6 November 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141395050
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange





An extraordinary find - a great cache of ancient, magical stories in the same tradition as The Arabian Nights

On the shrouded corpse hung a tablet of green topaz with the inscription: 'I am Shaddad the Great. I conquered a thousand cities; a thousand white elephants were collected for me; I lived for a thousand years and my kingdom covered both east and west, but when death came to me nothing of all that I had gathered was of any avail. You who see me take heed: for Time is not to be trusted.'

Dating from at least a millennium ago, these are the earliest known Arabic short stories, surviving in a single, ragged manuscript in a library in Istanbul. Some found their way into The Arabian Nights but most have never been read in English before. Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange has monsters, lost princes, jewels beyond price, a princess turned into a gazelle, sword-wielding statues and shocking reversals of fortune.

  • Published: 6 November 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141395050
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

About the author

Anonymus

Born in the north of England, the author of THE BOY WHO SAW TRUE chose to remain anonymous and would only allow his diary to appear several years after his death, with the stipulation that the original spellings were to remain and some of the names be changed.
His editor Cyril Scott enjoyed a two-fold career as a musical composer and a writer on the occult and other related matters.

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