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THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE
Truth is stranger than fiction.
OLD SAYING.
HAVING had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental
investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsoornot, a work which (like
the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe;
and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American--if
we except, perhaps, the author of the "Curiosities of American
Literature";--having had occasion, I say, to turn over some pages of the
first--mentioned very remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to
discover that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error
respecting the fate of the vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, as that
fate is depicted in the "Arabian Nights"; and that the denouement there
given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least to
blame in not having gone very much farther.
For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the
inquisitive reader to the "Isitsoornot" itself, but in the meantime, I
shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I there discovered.
It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, a
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