The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE
jealous of his queen, not only puts her to death, but
makes a vow, by his beard and the prophet, to
espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his
dominions, and the next morning to deliver her up to
the executioner.
Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the
letter, and with a religious punctuality and method
that conferred great credit upon him as a man of
devout feelings and excellent sense, he was interrupted
one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit
from his grand vizier, to whose daughter, it appears,
there had occurred an idea.
Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that
she would either redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish, after the approved
fashion of all heroines, in the attempt.
Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be
leap-year (which makes the sacrifice more meritorious), she deputes her father, the grand vizier, to make
an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the king
eagerly accepts - (he had intended to take it at all
events, and had put off the matter from day to day,
only through fear of the vizier) -but, in accepting it
now, he gives all parties very distinctly to understand
that, grand vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the
slightest design of giving up one iota of his vow or of
his privileges. When, therefore, the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king, and did actually
marry him despite her father's excellent advice not to
do anything of the kind- when she would and did
marry him, I say, will-I nill-I, it was with her beautiful black eyes as thoroughly open as the nature of the
case would allow.
It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had
26i