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This nine volume set provides an overview of many aspects of Middle Eastern language and literature. These books range from discussions of the Arabic language and its publications, to translations of some of the region’s most important early works, to a survey of folk tales and modern literature.

For centuries Iran hosted numerous travellers and visitors of diverse nationalities and backgrounds. Many of these travellers left behind documents in which they recorded their observations during their residence in Iran, and these embody a vast range of firsthand information about the land and its people at different periods of time. This book, first published in 1990, takes as its subjects the nature and history of Iranian folk narrative scholarship. The contributions of travellers are given their due recognition as important source documents.