The Story of the ‘Orphan Tales’ in the Arabian Nights between Antoine Galland and Hanna Diyab

Abstract

There is a consensus among eastern and western scholars that the most popular tales of the Arabian Nights are ‘Sinbad the Sailor’, ‘Aladdin and the Magic Lamp’, and ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’. While the first tale was behind Antoine Galland’s sustained effort to acquire the original copy of the Nights, the other two tales were not found in any written form. Hence, they were known as the ‘Orphan Tales’.

Drawing on both  Galland’s Diaries and Hanna Diyab’s Journey from Aleppo to Paris, as well as other recent secondary materials, this paper tries to reveal the mystery of these tales, and to demonstrate that they were invented by Hanna Diyab, who was their real author. Rather than acknowledging his debt to Diyab in acquiring these tales, Galland conspired to get rid of him and managed to send him back to Aleppo empty handed.