The Arabian Nights circle: Authors who read that compendium in their youth

May, 28; 2026. By Arscodex

Old Arabian Nights illustration

Today we're going to highlight some Romantic authors, primarily, and from later periods as well, who in their childhood or youth enjoyed the collection of tales in Arabian Nights, and whose subsequent work was markedly influenced by this book.

Let's begin at the beginning (that is, chronologically in this case). Antoine Galland was the French scholar who shaped the document, back in 1704, when it was originally published in France in French translation. This moment is known as the "starting gun" of Orientalism as an artistic movement in Europe and the West. Many, many artists, mainly French, but also English and Spanish, joined the Orientalist movement in one way or another. But that's not the topic we're discussing here.

From the harvest of Romanticism—a pan-European and pan-Western artistic movement—we now mention the authors—primarily from the world of literature, and more specifically, from the world of short stories—who were impacted by One Thousand and One Nights in their childhood or youth: Goethe in Germany; Edgar Allan Poe in the United States; Washington Irving, also in the United States; and finally, Hans Christian Andersen in Denmark.

Off the record, the author of this text, Pedro Alonso Pablos, counts himself among the avid readers of this collection. Although he was exposed to films and other material on this theme as a child, it wasn't until he was 27 that he obtained a copy—which he still possesses—organized and properly structured, translated into Spanish from Gustav Weil's German edition, and was able to fully appreciate them.

The conclusion is quite clear: if there's a storyteller in the room who wants to stand out in the world of literature and/or film (basically in the world of stories), they should read Arabian Nights, but not only read it, study it; even, if you will, elevate and admire it.

The point is fairly easy to grasp given the facts, I think.

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