Turkish Evening Entertainments: The Wonders of Remarkable Incidents and the Rarities of Anecdotes

Excerpt from Turkish Evening Entertainments: The Wonders of Remarkable Incidents and the Rarities of Anecdotes The manuscript of the following translation was sent to me by Mr. Brown, with the request that I would offer it to some publisher, in his name. It may, therefore, be proper for me to introduce it to the reader with a brief statement of the circumstances under which it was prepared, and is now presented to the public. The translator has resided for several years in Constantinople, as Dragoman of the United States Legation at the Ottoman Porte; and this work of Suheily having been published in that city in 1840, Mr. Brown, at an early period of his residence there, formed the design of translating it, in which he was encouraged by the approbation of the celebrated orientalist Baron Yon Hammer, who characterized the work as "by far the most interesting book that has been published at Constantinople for a long time." It is but justice to Mr. Brown, however, to add, that he does not claim to have made a translation which, in all respects, meets the demands of the scholar.