front cover of The Adventures of Sindbad
The Adventures of Sindbad
Gyula Krúdy
Central European University Press, 1998

In these marvellously written tales, Sindbad, a voyager in the realms of memory and imagination, travels through the centuries in pursuit of an ideal of love that is directed as much at the feminine essence as at his individual lovers. He is by nature a melancholy sensualist, but whether the women he seduces and loves are projections of his desire, or he of theirs, is a moot question.
These short stories flow without a strict narrative framework Sindbad journeys between the past and the present and is merely a ghost in many of his adventures. Although Sindbad can move through time, it is time that proves his chief enemy, and youth that remains his real love. This deeply autumnal book, full of resonances and associations, is an erotic elegy to the dying Habsburg Empire.
The stories are taken from the omnibus triple-volume Hungarian edition published as The Three Books of Sindbad in Hungary in 1944, which includes The Travels of Sindbad (1912), The Resurrection of Sindbad (1916), and The Youth and Grief of Sindbad (1917).

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front cover of Sindbad the Sailor and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights
Sindbad the Sailor and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights
Laurence Housman
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2018
The much-loved tales from The Thousand and One Nights first appeared in English translation in the early nineteenth century, based on French translations of versions of the stories found in Syrian and Persian manuscripts. The popularity of these ancient and beguiling tales set against the backdrop of Baghdad, a city of wealth and peace, stoked the widespread enthusiasm for and scholarly interest in eastern arts and culture all across Europe.

Four of the most well-known tales, translated by Laurence Housman, are reproduced in this collector’s edition: “Sindbad the Sailor,” “Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp,” “The Story of the Three Calendars” and “The Sleeper Awakened.” Each is illustrated with exquisite watercolors by the renowned artist Edmund Dulac. The sumptuous illustrations reproduced here capture the beauty and timeless quality of these ever-fascinating stories, made at the zenith of early twentieth-century book illustration.
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