• The book is an edited and illustrated version of the original one and includes 18 or more unique illustrations which are relevant to its content.• Arabian society in the middle ages : studies from the Thousand and one nights by Edward William Lane. When Mr. Lane translated the "Thousand and One Nights," he was not content with producing a mere rendering of the Arabic text: he saw that the manners and ideas there described required a commentary if they were to become intelligible to an unlearned reader. At the end of each chapter of his translation, therefore, he appended a series of explanatory notes, which often reached the proportions of elaborate essays on the main characteristics of Mohammadan life.