Antoine Galland

I have two missions:

(1) To travel the world visiting locations with a literary connection.  It may be a place, a memorial, a person, a bookshop or any other link you can make.

(2) To hear about your favourite book.

Please post pictures as a record of travels.  Thank you.

Antoine Galland (1646-1715)

Antoine Galland  was a French traveller, linguist, archeologist and orientalist.  He is most remembered as the first European translator of the Syrian manuscript of tales, One Thousand and One Nights.  His French translation, Les Mille et Une Nuit  was subsequently translated into many other languages and had a significant influence on European literature. 

Galland had discovered a manuscript, The Tale of Sinbad the Sailor,  which he translated into French and published in the 1690s.  Following the success of this, he commenced translating a Syrian manuscript of The Thousand and One Nights.  This was published as Les Mille et Une Nuit  in twelve volumes between 1704 and 1717, the final volume being published after his death.  His translations were as readable stories in a form suitable for the time, with the poetry and erotic passages omitted.  The first volumes of Les Mille et Une Nuit contained only stories from the original manuscript, but later volumes included other tales he had collected from various sources.   Mystery surrounds the origins of some of the most famous tales.  For example, there are no Arabic manuscripts of  Aladdin or Ali Baba, which pre-date Galland's translation. This has led some scholars to conclude that Galland invented the stories himself to add new material for his 'best-seller' series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Galland