The 1001 Nights is a collection of ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, and other folk tales including such favorites as Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Aladdin. The first European version (1704–1717) was translated into French by Antoine Galland with the first English language edition in 1706. Edward Lane, John Payne, and Sir Richard Francis Burton all did their own versions. The stories have become part of childhood’s gallery of characters despite the fact that the original stories are quite bawdy. Writers like Andrew Lang rewrote the Arabian fairy tales for children at the turn of the 20th century.
The influx of Arabian tales influenced European writers after 1704. William Beckford’s Vathek was composed in French beginning in 1782, and then translated into English in 1786 without Beckford’s name as An Arabian Tale, From an Unpublished Manuscript. Like The Castle of Otranto before it, the author was hidden, at first. This is appropriate because Beckford’s tale is a Gothic despite being an Arabesque. Vathek is an evil caliph, who through his mother’s influence, trucks with evil spirits and ultimately meets a horrible fate. Later in the 20th Century some unused material, The Episodes of Vathek, were added long after the author’s death.
Arabesques were any music, decorative style or literature that took its inspiration from this Arab flourishing. Nikolay Gogol published Arabesques five years before Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840). Both authors wished to suggest that their work had an unusual flavor descended from the Arabs, not that the stories concern Arab characters or plots, but that their spirit was similar, shocking, grand and mystical.
The Victorians would turn this ornate Arabian feel directly into novels. The Shaving of Shagpat , an Arabian Entertainment by George Meredith appeared in 1856. The second paragraph outlines what the book is about:
“Now the story of Shibli Bagarag, and of the ball he followed, and of the subterranean kingdom he came to, and of the enchanted palace he entered, and of the sleeping king he shaved, and of the two princesses he released, and of the Afrite held in subjection by the arts of one and bottled by her, is it not known as ’twere written on the finger-nails of men and traced in their corner robes?“
George Eliot said of the book: “…Mr. Meredith has not simply imitated Arabian fictions, he has been inspired by them; he has used oriental forms, but only as an oriental genius would have used them.”
Khaled, A Tale of Arabia by F. Marion Crawford (1891) has the genie Khaled in search of a way to make his wife love him, so that he can acquire a soul. Both books would be rescued from obscurity by Lin Carter who included them in the Ballantine Fantasy Series of the 1970s.
But how does this affect Sword & Sorcery? Perhaps not very much. Robert E. Howard may not have read any of these with the exception of Poe. His friend H. P. Lovecraft may have suggested Vathek which he mentions in “The Supernatural Horror in Literature”. (Though I can find nothing in HPL’s letters. A job for a real scholar!) Again, none of this really matters because the Arabian Nights snuck in by a more devious route.
Robert E. Howard loved historical adventure fiction. He wrote about the Crusades and the Middle East in stories like “The Sowers of Thunder” and “The Shadow of the Vulture”. He wrote an entire series about El Borak the Swift, American Xavier Gordon who fights in Afghanistan among the Arabs there. This love of Arabian culture and settings finds its way into the Conan series in particular the same way pirate fiction and Westerns do. Conan stories take place all over the Hyborian world. In one story Conan is in the woods fighting Picts (Native Americans), in another he is the leader of a band of pirates alongside Belit, in yet another he is facing off against very Persian sorcerers. (Wikipedia also mentions Clark Ashton Smith being influenced by the Arabian Nights as well, in particular with his sorcerer characters.)
REH took all the things he loved about the stories appearing Adventure and melded them into Conan’s world. Some of this was intentional, but much of it was not. Howard would write a tale for Adventure, a market he never cracked, and it would be rejected. He might score a sale with Adventure‘s lesser cousin Top-Notch, but maybe not. Add some monsters, change a few names and voila, a Conan story for Weird Tales. L. Sprague de Camp only amplified this when he came along in the 1950s as editor.
But we aren’t done yet. Remember all that stuff that didn’t affect Howard. well, it would make box office gold in Hollywood. In 1924, Abdullah Achmed, mysterious writer of mystical tales, would write the screenplay (with Lotta Woods) for Thief of Baghdad starring Douglas Fairbanks. Perhaps one of the greatest silent films, it cemented Fairbanks as a major star but more importantly, told producers that Arabian films could make big money. According to L. Sprague de Camp’s Dark Valley Destiny (1983), Howard saw the film several times.
But these films pale next to the wonderful output of Ray Harryhausen. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Golden Voyage (1974) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) form a trilogy of films (along with Harryhausen’s Greek inspired films) that have influenced many Fantasy writers since 1958. Robert E. Howard, of course, was not one of them, dying in 1936. Harryhausen certainly was a REH fan, considering his work in the 1950s and 1969 according to two Internet sources. This wouldn’t surprise me at all. Ray loved animating monsters and who better to show you how to tell an action story with monsters than Howard?
So what are we left with in 2020? We have Prince of Persia, originally a video game where you jump from building to building, then a film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, the Scorpion King of Dwayne Johnson, Disney cartoons starring Robin Williams (and live remakes with Will Smith). Is this all we are left with?
The Arabian Fantasy story has not faded from Hollywood. But what about in fiction? Howard Andrew Jones resurrected Arabian Sword & Sorcery in the Dabir & Asim series, including The Desert of Souls (2011), The Bones of the Old Ones (2012) and The Waters of Eternity (2011). Saladin Ahmed has Throne of the Crescent Moon (2012) and other books. And I am sure there are others but being someone who has his head stuck in the past (I was reading Le Fanu last night, not Stephen King), I can’t really tell you much. By all means, let me know more…
