Mr. Curtis
has so happily selected for his translation invites us to compare it;
and it is not too much praise to say that it can well stand the
comparison,--we mean as a selection of stories fascinating to old and
young. As to the matter of translation itself, the versions we have of
the "Arabian Nights" are notoriously bad. These stories, which Mr.
Curtis has laid all good children and all right-minded grown people
under perpetual obligation by thus collecting and presenting to them,
are the productions of a single German writer, and, with the exception
of three or four separately published in magazines, have, we believe,
never before been translated into English. They present some very
interesting points of contrast with the ever-famous book of Eastern
stories,--such as open some very tempting cross-views of the German and
the Eastern mind, which, for want of opportunity, we must pass by now.

The scenes of most of them are laid in the East,--of a few in Germany;
but the robust _method_ of the German story-writer is apparent in each.
We wish we could quote from one or two which have particularly charmed
us; but though this is impossible within any decent limits, we can at
least provoke the appetite of readers of all ages by the mere
displaying of such titles as these:--"The History of Caliph Stork";
"The Story of the Severed Hand"; "The Story of Little Muck"; "Nosey the
Dwarf"; "The Young Englishman"; "The Prophecy of the Silver Florin";
"The Cold Heart," etc. What prospects for winter evenings are here! And
while we can assure the adult reader that the promise which these
titles give of burlesque or humorous description, and bold, romantic
narrative, shall be more than kept, it may be well also to say, for the
comfort of those whom we hope to see buy the book for their children's
sake, that the stories in it are entirely free from certain objections
which may be fairly urged against the "Arabian Nights" as reading for
young people. The "Arabian Days" have nothing to be ashamed of in the
nature of their entertainments.

The translation itself is a performance in a high degree creditable,
not only to the German, but to the English, scholarship of Mr. Curtis.
We perceive scarcely any of that peculiar stiffness of style which
makes so many otherwise excellent translations painful to read,--the
stiffness as of one walking in new boots,--the result of dressing the
words of one language in the grammatical construction of