The Thousand and One Nights
Date: 1927
Region: North America
Subject: Explicit Sexuality
Medium: Literature
Artist: Origin unknown, first translation from the Arabic by A. Galland
Confronting Bodies: U.S. Customs
Dates of Action: 1927
Location: New York City, NY
Description of Artwork: Origin unknown, first translation from the Arabic by A. Galland The Thousand and One Nights, in Paris, 1704-1712: a collection of stories of uncertain date and authorship, whose tales of Aladin, Ali Baba, and Sinbad the Sailor have almost become part of Western folklore. The stories are set in Central Asia -the island or peninsula of India and China.
The Incident: The Customs held up 500 sets of the translation by French scholar, Mardrus, which were imported form England.
Results of Incident: In 1931 the ban was lifted on the unexpurgated translation (1885-1888), by Richard Francis Burton, but the prohibition was maintained on the Mardrus edition.
Source: Banned Books 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D., by Anne Lyon Haight, and Chandler B. Grannis, R.R. Bowker Co, 1978.
