Like one of the jinn who suddenly materialize and vanish in its pages, Alf laylah wa laylah or The Thousand and One Nights is a book that is in many ways difficult to pin down. Indeed, exactly what texts and what stories constitute the Nights has always been the subject of some disagreement, and so whoever would write about The Thousand and One Nights must say exactly what entity he means by that title. The best way to respond to the question of what I mean by The Thousand and One Nights is to give some account of the history of the book. That account will also refer to the European editions, because it can be argued that these translations influenced modern Arabic versions of The Nights, such as the Second Calcutta edition.