Richard E Grant unravels origins of The Arabian Nights

  

In conjunction with the airing of Secrets of The Arabian Nights on BBC Four, BBC News has an article about the Arabian Nights, Richard E Grant unravels origins of The Arabian Nights. It's a great overview article and here's an excerpt of some of the highlights:

The tales have their roots in oral storytelling thousands of years ago including folk tales from India and mystical stories from Persia

They were carried and spread by traders travelling on the great trade routes of the East where they began to take shape

The oral stories were collected and written down in the great cities of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo

In the 10th Century, an Arab historian recorded the tales and called them A Thousand Nights

The earliest manuscript of the tales is in Arabic and was written in Syria in the 14th Century

French traveller and scholar Antoine Galland translated it from Arabic in to French in the 1600s

He began with Sinbad the Sailor, which was an immediate sensation in Parisian high society

After fans stood outside his house and demanded more, he is believed to have written more stories and embellished others, such as Ali Baba and Aladdin

In 1706 an anonymous translation of Galland's book called The Arabian Nights arrived in Britain

Records show the first theatrical performance of Aladdin was held in 1788 in London's Covent Garden

There is also a short 2 minute video preview on the article page but it doesn't have an embedding option, so I can't share it here, but it wasn't blocked for North American viewers.