Optional Course: COA1 (lit.

)
Target population: 3rd year students, 2011-2012, 2nd semester
Specialization: R-F/E
Course Designer: Lecturer Elena Butoescu

Challenging the Realist Novel:

Oriental Prose in 18th - century England

UNIT 5
Scheherezading It: The Arabian Nights and their Adaptability to the 18th
century Paradigm

“All the Eastern nations, Persians, Tartars, and Indians, are here distinguished, and
appear such as they are, from the sovereign to the meanest subject; so that without
the fatigue of going to see those people in their respective countries, the reader has
here the pleasure to see them act, and hear them speak.” (Arabian Nights,
Translator’s Preface, 1785).

The collection of stories known in the English culture as The Thousand and One Nights, or The
Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, or simply, The Arabian Nights has made the object of interest in
the academic world ever since Galland’s first translation into French, which was published between
1704 and 1717 for the first time in Europe. The most significant work of Oriental narrative is
believed to have originated at some indefinite period in Iran under the title of Hezâr afsân (A
Thousand Stories), and was later translated into Arabic as Alf laylah wa-laylah (A Thousand and
One Nights or A Thousand Nights and a Night). However, scholars haven’t agreed upon a particular
origin of the tales, or on a unique title, as the stories have never attained a complete status and a
definite structure.
In the early 18th century, Antoine Galland (1646-1715) discovered the Oriental tales in
Syria, as he stated in The Epistle Dedicatory to each edition, and made them known to the French
public by creatively translating them into a twelve-volume French edition under the name of Les
Mille et une Nuits, contes arabes traduits en françois (Paris: Barbin, 1704). The French title reveals
both the sources used and the practice exploited in the tales: an adjustment or rewriting of the
original version, in line with the 17th and 18th century habit of adaptation and imitation. Galland’s
was the first in a series of future versions that preserved little from the original Arabic, adding to it
some other stories, usually personal creations influenced by the oral tradition in literature.

1
 The Arabian Nights were quite influential for the writings of the time, especially the realist
novel, the essay, and most of the satires that took the shape of ‘tales’ in line with the Oriental
tradition: Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels was supposed to draw on the Nights, especially on Sindbad’s
voyages, while Addison used some of the tales in the collection in order to moralize and instruct the
public in his Spectator.1 In addition to categorizing The Arabian Nights as part of both the
imaginative and moralizing groups, Conant mentions Addison in relation to the latter’s appreciative
remarks on “the fable as the best form of giving advice” (80).
As one can infer from the title page, the collection sold well because the stories promised
entertainment, a certain quantity of pleasant histories (one thousand and one), the fabulous and the
marvellous it contained in the title, the account of “the Customs, Manners, and Religion of the
Eastern Nations, viz. Tartars, Persians and Indians”, stories about the sultan, sultaness, and their
subjects, the tales’ verisimilitude to the original, by mentioning Galland’s name, as well as a
soothing and legitimate approbation according to which the edition was issued and the tales
introduced to the reader as harmless and amusing. All these references encouraged the reader to buy
them and use them to a useful purpose: they were meant to instruct and teach virtue by example, by
entertaining the reader at the same time. The Approbation and the Epistle Dedicatory leave the
impression that an authority commissioned the work, because the crown was legally endowed with
the power to exercise censorship. It is no surprise that among the first English readers of The
Arabian Nights were those rewarded by the king for their literary merits: Swift, the would-be-
bishop, Addison, the secretary of state, and Pope who, in The Dunciad, described in an aristocratic
manner the print world as “monstruously dangerous to letters and to all civilized society” (Kernan
11).
More than a translation, Galland’s English edition of The Arabian Nights can be considered
an independent and original work in itself, so it can be discussed as a substantially different work.
For this reason, when writing about the The Arabian Nights, I take the unconventional step of
referring to Galland as the work’s author, and consider his translation as the main point of departure
for the translations that were to follow it.
In spite of having been neglected by eighteenth century studies and treated as a minor genre,
both fictional as well as non-fictional Oriental narratives written during the eighteenth century can
be found in a large number. Did the quantitative effect of the print culture overshadow its
qualitative character? Were the Oriental tales popularized as an alternative to the realist novel, as a
subversive means of satire, as a bearer of moral and educational devices, or all of these at once?
Were the leading writers and publishers of the eighteenth century interested in the authenticity of
the sources and the truth to translation, or any Grub Street hack publication passed for reliable as
1
For further references on the uses of the oriental tales, see Peter L. Caracciolo’s endnotes to the ‘Introduction’ to The
Arabian Nights in English Literature, p. 62.

2
long as it served ‘moral’ purposes? How did the principle of presenting a false document as true for
the sake of moral education work in an age when the main aim of the literary world was to instruct a
less educated public? And finally, how can literary criticism explain that even if both the eighteenth
century realist novel and The Arabian Nights were employed for the same purpose to entertain and
instruct the general public, the former genre found a place in the eighteenth century literary canon,
while the latter has not been considered worthy of inclusion in the European literary Establishment?
A book with no specific author but with multiple authors, owing to the various translations it
has been subject to, The Arabian Nights has always been a work in progress and in process, what
the modern literary criticism would term “a complex ‘literary creation’” (Chraïbi 159).
It is not a surprise to celebrate the Arabian Nights as part of the European culture, as one can find
the lively narratives of Scheherezade still present and even more influential after three centuries.
Although the various collections of stories are under debate, most leading contemporary scholars,
among whom Ulrich Marzolph stand as proof have agreed that Galland’s translation was the
departure point for further translations and adaptations into different European languages,
promoting “a vogue of fiction in the ‘Oriental style’” (Marzolph 154) and initiating “an endless
number of imitations and re-creations of the most diverse kind not only in literature, but also in the
arts, music, dance, and even architecture” (Marzolph 154). The “tremendous impact the Arabian
Nights have exercised on Western creative imagination” (Marzolph 155) can be noticed from the
extraordinary influential power it has had on both European and Latin American fiction.
The Thousand and one Nights has been influential not only on eighteenth century literary
world (as a contributor to the rise of the novel) and cultural practices, but also as a source for the
fiction tradition, challenging European imagination and creativity. The history of this tradition starts
with eighteenth century early development of the novel (Fielding’s Tom Jones) to be followed by
late eighteenth century invented stories in the Oriental manner (Beckford’s Vathek, an Arabian
Tale, aka The History of the Caliph Vathek, or Cazotte’s Suite des Mille et une Nuits). It continued
with 19th century interest in the Near East (Sir William Jones, Robert Southey’s poem Thalaba,
whose footnotes make extensive references to travel books, or Henry James’s interest in The
Arabian Nights as declared in The Europeans. Twentieth century and contemporary fiction include
Jorge Luis Borges and Salman Rushdie as the most imaginative writers whose fiction abounds in
allusions to the Arabian Nights.
Galland’s translation initiated a stream of inventions and imitations. An eighteenth century
French writer, Jacques Cazotte pretended that the collection of stories he compiled under the title of
Suite des Mille et une Nuits (Continuation of the Thousand and One Nights) contained tales from
the Arabian Nights never discovered before. The tales as they were translated into French or
English, and modified accordingly are not a product of the Arab-Muslim civilization, but a product

3
of European imagination and creativity. The English translations kept the moralizing themes and
characters (though their Arabic names were Europeanized), but interfered in the cultural and
stylistic aspects of the text, adjusting it in keeping with the norms of the time and the appropriate
system of cultural values.
In the Arab world, The Arabian Nights did not go beyond their status as stories, fables with
a certain moral value. Outside the Arab world, its function changed and they were Europeanized, or
Englished, or institutionalized. They were employed for a different purpose and they became a
discipline. The English translators strategically turned the Nights into travel accounts, ethnographic
study, or endowed it with anthropological meaning, depicting the Arab life and society, and
replacing its status as storytelling with that of history telling. The translators posed as sociologists
or orientalists and not as storytellers. Scheherezad and her narration were employed for different
purposes against a different background: the English society. In his Preface, Burton admits to it:
“Our century of translations, popular and vernacular, from (Professor Antoine) Galland’s
delightful abbreviation and adaptation (A.D. 1704), in no wise represent the eastern original.
The best and latest, the Rev. Mr. Foster’s, which is diffuse and verbose, and Mr. G. Moir
Bussey’s, which is a re-correction, abound in gallicisms of style and idiom; and one and all
degrade a chef-d’œuvre of the highest anthropological and ethnographical interest and
importance to a mere fairy-book, a nice present for little boys” (2001: xxvi).
Eighteenth century England wanted more then one thousand and one tales; Lane responded
to the Victorian sensibilities by omitting passages that he considered “inappropriate or offensive”
(Haddawy 1998: xvii); while Burton confessed that he “carefully Englished the picturesque turns
and novel expressions of the original in all their outlandishness” (Preface 2001 edition: xxviii).
In the process of translation, each edition underwent modification and each editor used the
narrative material for his own purposes, adapting the language, topos, and the cultural practices
described to fit his particular theme. Instead of assuming the role of being an accurate
representation of cultural differences, the translators of The Arabian Nights into English took the
liberty of playing with the text at will, deleting and adding at random without purporting to be
faithful to the original text. Thus, their translations become independent collections of stories,
remaking The Arabian Nights and domesticating the collection by means of employing different
strategies. The various collections resulted are brand new publications, in search of popularity while
popularizing eighteenth century ideas of good morals, without concerning themselves with ideas of
authenticity or true representation of the image of the Arab tradition. Instead, the English translators
employed the Arabic stories as a means to depict alterity in an adapted form. All the editors justify
their choice of text and their re-writing of some of the stories by appealing to the necessities of the
age in relation to their own beliefs.

4
 The form the stories acquired is characterized by the biased reduction or expansion of the
original as well as by the modification and revision of the chosen texts. As a result of this process,
the reading public of eighteenth, nineteenth, or twentieth century was presented with tales that
effectively met their requirements while pretending to be faithful to the original edition.
A rediscovery of the oriental tale in eighteenth century England could awake an interest in
the study of the relation between non-novelistic prose fiction (The Arabian Nights, An Historical
and Geographical Description of Formosa, etc.) and the role of the realist novel. Next to the
domestic novel of Defoe or Fielding, the century needed to domesticate foreign non-novelistic texts,
thus reflecting the blurred boundaries of fictional and non-fictional prose in the eighteenth century.
In relation to the eighteenth century paradigm of rationality, the oriental tale turned the world
upside down. The question of the position of the oriental tale in the eighteenth century literary
world is now reopened and negotiated in an interdisciplinary environment.

Bibliography:
Arabian Nights Entertainments: consisting of one thousand and one stories, told by the Sultaness of
the Indies, ... Translated from the French of M. Galland. In four volumes. London: printed for
Harrison and Co., 1785. 4 vols. Based on information from English Short Title Catalogue.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale Group.

The Arabian Nights. Tales from A Thousand and One Nights. Translated, with a Preface and Notes,
by Sir Richard F. Burton. Introduction by A. S. Byatt. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.

Chraïbi, Aboubakr. “Galland’s ‘Ali Baba’ and Other Arabic Versions.” Marvels and Tales:
Journal of Fairy-Tales Studies. 18.2 (2004): 159-169.

Conant, Martha Pike. The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1908.

Kernan, Alvin. Samuel Johnson & the Impact of Print. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1987.

Marzolph, Ulrich. “Preface to the Special Issue on ‘The Arabian Nights: Past and Present.’”
Marvels and Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tales Studies. 18.2 (2004): 154-156.

Optional Course: COA1 (lit.)

Target population: 3rd year students, 2011-2012, 2nd semester
Specialization: R-F/E

5
Course Designer: Lecturer Elena Butoescu

Challenging the Realist Novel:

Oriental Prose in 18th - century England

UNIT 5
Scheherezading It: The Arabian Nights and their Adaptability to the 18th
century Paradigm

“All the Eastern nations, Persians, Tartars, and Indians, are here distinguished, and
appear such as they are, from the sovereign to the meanest subject; so that without
the fatigue of going to see those people in their respective countries, the reader has
here the pleasure to see them act, and hear them speak.” (Arabian Nights,
Translator’s Preface, 1785).

The collection of stories known in the English culture as The Thousand and One Nights, or The
Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, or simply, The Arabian Nights has made the object of interest in
the academic world ever since Galland’s first translation into French, which was published between
1704 and 1717 for the first time in Europe. The most significant work of Oriental narrative is
believed to have originated at some indefinite period in Iran under the title of Hezâr afsân (A
Thousand Stories), and was later translated into Arabic as Alf laylah wa-laylah (A Thousand and
One Nights or A Thousand Nights and a Night). However, scholars haven’t agreed upon a particular
origin of the tales, or on a unique title, as the stories have never attained a complete status and a
definite structure.
In the early 18th century, Antoine Galland (1646-1715) discovered the Oriental tales in
Syria, as he stated in The Epistle Dedicatory to each edition, and made them known to the French
public by creatively translating them into a twelve-volume French edition under the name of Les
Mille et une Nuits, contes arabes traduits en françois (Paris: Barbin, 1704). The French title reveals
both the sources used and the practice exploited in the tales: an adjustment or rewriting of the
original version, in line with the 17th and 18th century habit of adaptation and imitation. Galland’s
was the first in a series of future versions that preserved little from the original Arabic, adding to it
some other stories, usually personal creations influenced by the oral tradition in literature.
The Arabian Nights were quite influential for the writings of the time, especially the realist
novel, the essay, and most of the satires that took the shape of ‘tales’ in line with the Oriental
tradition: Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels was supposed to draw on the Nights, especially on Sindbad’s

6
voyages, while Addison used some of the tales in the collection in order to moralize and instruct the
public in his Spectator.2 In addition to categorizing The Arabian Nights as part of both the
imaginative and moralizing groups, Conant mentions Addison in relation to the latter’s appreciative
remarks on “the fable as the best form of giving advice” (80).
As one can infer from the title page, the collection sold well because the stories promised
entertainment, a certain quantity of pleasant histories (one thousand and one), the fabulous and the
marvellous it contained in the title, the account of “the Customs, Manners, and Religion of the
Eastern Nations, viz. Tartars, Persians and Indians”, stories about the sultan, sultaness, and their
subjects, the tales’ verisimilitude to the original, by mentioning Galland’s name, as well as a
soothing and legitimate approbation according to which the edition was issued and the tales
introduced to the reader as harmless and amusing. All these references encouraged the reader to buy
them and use them to a useful purpose: they were meant to instruct and teach virtue by example, by
entertaining the reader at the same time. The Approbation and the Epistle Dedicatory leave the
impression that an authority commissioned the work, because the crown was legally endowed with
the power to exercise censorship. It is no surprise that among the first English readers of The
Arabian Nights were those rewarded by the king for their literary merits: Swift, the would-be-
bishop, Addison, the secretary of state, and Pope who, in The Dunciad, described in an aristocratic
manner the print world as “monstruously dangerous to letters and to all civilized society” (Kernan
11).
More than a translation, Galland’s English edition of The Arabian Nights can be considered
an independent and original work in itself, so it can be discussed as a substantially different work.
For this reason, when writing about the The Arabian Nights, I take the unconventional step of
referring to Galland as the work’s author, and consider his translation as the main point of departure
for the translations that were to follow it.
In spite of having been neglected by eighteenth century studies and treated as a minor genre,
both fictional as well as non-fictional Oriental narratives written during the eighteenth century can
be found in a large number. Did the quantitative effect of the print culture overshadow its
qualitative character? Were the Oriental tales popularized as an alternative to the realist novel, as a
subversive means of satire, as a bearer of moral and educational devices, or all of these at once?
Were the leading writers and publishers of the eighteenth century interested in the authenticity of
the sources and the truth to translation, or any Grub Street hack publication passed for reliable as
long as it served ‘moral’ purposes? How did the principle of presenting a false document as true for
the sake of moral education work in an age when the main aim of the literary world was to instruct a
less educated public? And finally, how can literary criticism explain that even if both the eighteenth
2
For further references on the uses of the oriental tales, see Peter L. Caracciolo’s endnotes to the ‘Introduction’ to The
Arabian Nights in English Literature, p. 62.

7
century realist novel and The Arabian Nights were employed for the same purpose to entertain and
instruct the general public, the former genre found a place in the eighteenth century literary canon,
while the latter has not been considered worthy of inclusion in the European literary Establishment?
A book with no specific author but with multiple authors, owing to the various translations it
has been subject to, The Arabian Nights has always been a work in progress and in process, what
the modern literary criticism would term “a complex ‘literary creation’” (Chraïbi 159).
It is not a surprise to celebrate the Arabian Nights as part of the European culture, as one can find
the lively narratives of Scheherezade still present and even more influential after three centuries.
Although the various collections of stories are under debate, most leading contemporary scholars,
among whom Ulrich Marzolph stand as proof have agreed that Galland’s translation was the
departure point for further translations and adaptations into different European languages,
promoting “a vogue of fiction in the ‘Oriental style’” (Marzolph 154) and initiating “an endless
number of imitations and re-creations of the most diverse kind not only in literature, but also in the
arts, music, dance, and even architecture” (Marzolph 154). The “tremendous impact the Arabian
Nights have exercised on Western creative imagination” (Marzolph 155) can be noticed from the
extraordinary influential power it has had on both European and Latin American fiction.
The Thousand and one Nights has been influential not only on eighteenth century literary
world (as a contributor to the rise of the novel) and cultural practices, but also as a source for the
fiction tradition, challenging European imagination and creativity. The history of this tradition starts
with eighteenth century early development of the novel (Fielding’s Tom Jones) to be followed by
late eighteenth century invented stories in the Oriental manner (Beckford’s Vathek, an Arabian
Tale, aka The History of the Caliph Vathek, or Cazotte’s Suite des Mille et une Nuits). It continued
with 19th century interest in the Near East (Sir William Jones, Robert Southey’s poem Thalaba,
whose footnotes make extensive references to travel books, or Henry James’s interest in The
Arabian Nights as declared in The Europeans. Twentieth century and contemporary fiction include
Jorge Luis Borges and Salman Rushdie as the most imaginative writers whose fiction abounds in
allusions to the Arabian Nights.
Galland’s translation initiated a stream of inventions and imitations. An eighteenth century
French writer, Jacques Cazotte pretended that the collection of stories he compiled under the title of
Suite des Mille et une Nuits (Continuation of the Thousand and One Nights) contained tales from
the Arabian Nights never discovered before. The tales as they were translated into French or
English, and modified accordingly are not a product of the Arab-Muslim civilization, but a product
of European imagination and creativity. The English translations kept the moralizing themes and
characters (though their Arabic names were Europeanized), but interfered in the cultural and

8
stylistic aspects of the text, adjusting it in keeping with the norms of the time and the appropriate
system of cultural values.
In the Arab world, The Arabian Nights did not go beyond their status as stories, fables with
a certain moral value. Outside the Arab world, its function changed and they were Europeanized, or
Englished, or institutionalized. They were employed for a different purpose and they became a
discipline. The English translators strategically turned the Nights into travel accounts, ethnographic
study, or endowed it with anthropological meaning, depicting the Arab life and society, and
replacing its status as storytelling with that of history telling. The translators posed as sociologists
or orientalists and not as storytellers. Scheherezad and her narration were employed for different
purposes against a different background: the English society. In his Preface, Burton admits to it:

“Our century of translations, popular and vernacular, from (Professor Antoine) Galland’s
delightful abbreviation and adaptation (A.D. 1704), in no wise represent the eastern original.
The best and latest, the Rev. Mr. Foster’s, which is diffuse and verbose, and Mr. G. Moir
Bussey’s, which is a re-correction, abound in gallicisms of style and idiom; and one and all
degrade a chef-d’œuvre of the highest anthropological and ethnographical interest and
importance to a mere fairy-book, a nice present for little boys” (2001: xxvi).

Eighteenth century England wanted more then one thousand and one tales; Lane responded
to the Victorian sensibilities by omitting passages that he considered “inappropriate or offensive”
(Haddawy 1998: xvii); while Burton confessed that he “carefully Englished the picturesque turns
and novel expressions of the original in all their outlandishness” (Preface 2001 edition: xxviii).
In the process of translation, each edition underwent modification and each editor used the
narrative material for his own purposes, adapting the language, topos, and the cultural practices
described to fit his particular theme. Instead of assuming the role of being an accurate
representation of cultural differences, the translators of The Arabian Nights into English took the
liberty of playing with the text at will, deleting and adding at random without purporting to be
faithful to the original text. Thus, their translations become independent collections of stories,
remaking The Arabian Nights and domesticating the collection by means of employing different
strategies. The various collections resulted are brand new publications, in search of popularity while
popularizing eighteenth century ideas of good morals, without concerning themselves with ideas of
authenticity or true representation of the image of the Arab tradition. Instead, the English translators
employed the Arabic stories as a means to depict alterity in an adapted form. All the editors justify
their choice of text and their re-writing of some of the stories by appealing to the necessities of the
age in relation to their own beliefs.

9
 The form the stories acquired is characterized by the biased reduction or expansion of the
original as well as by the modification and revision of the chosen texts. As a result of this process,
the reading public of eighteenth, nineteenth, or twentieth century was presented with tales that
effectively met their requirements while pretending to be faithful to the original edition.
A rediscovery of the oriental tale in eighteenth century England could awake an interest in
the study of the relation between non-novelistic prose fiction (The Arabian Nights, An Historical
and Geographical Description of Formosa, etc.) and the role of the realist novel. Next to the
domestic novel of Defoe or Fielding, the century needed to domesticate foreign non-novelistic texts,
thus reflecting the blurred boundaries of fictional and non-fictional prose in the eighteenth century.
In relation to the eighteenth century paradigm of rationality, the oriental tale turned the world
upside down. The question of the position of the oriental tale in the eighteenth century literary
world is now reopened and negotiated in an interdisciplinary environment.

Bibliography:
Arabian Nights Entertainments: consisting of one thousand and one stories, told by the Sultaness of
the Indies, ... Translated from the French of M. Galland. In four volumes. London: printed for
Harrison and Co., 1785. 4 vols. Based on information from English Short Title Catalogue.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale Group.

The Arabian Nights. Tales from A Thousand and One Nights. Translated, with a Preface and Notes,
by Sir Richard F. Burton. Introduction by A. S. Byatt. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.

Chraïbi, Aboubakr. “Galland’s ‘Ali Baba’ and Other Arabic Versions.” Marvels and Tales:
Journal of Fairy-Tales Studies. 18.2 (2004): 159-169.

Conant, Martha Pike. The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1908.

Kernan, Alvin. Samuel Johnson & the Impact of Print. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1987.

Marzolph, Ulrich. “Preface to the Special Issue on ‘The Arabian Nights: Past and Present.’”
Marvels and Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tales Studies. 18.2 (2004): 154-156.

Optional Course: COA1 (lit.)

Target population: 3rd year students, 2015-2016, 2nd semester
Specialization: R-F/E

10
Tutor: Dr Elena Butoescu

Challenging the Realist Novel:

Oriental Prose in 18th - century England

UNIT 6
Pseudo-Oriental Tales and Pseudo-Travel Writers in 18 th century England:
The Case of George Psalmanazar

“This, Sir, is an Age of Plot and Deceit, of Contradiction and Paradox

[…] It is very hard under all these Masks, to see the true Countenance
of Any Man.” (Defoe 1709: 10)

If Daniel Defoe, himself a fabricator of true fictions, was complaining about masquerades and the
difficulty to find out not only the true nature of man, but also of fiction, then what should the
eighteenth century reader have expected from a writer who had assumed linguistic, religious, and
identity disguises? He called himself Psalmanazar, or Psalmanaazaar, from Shalmaneser, an
Assyrian conqueror of the Israelits [2 Kings 17:3], thus making references to the Hebrew tradition.
Then, he posed as a pagan, and after that as a Catholic, to end up playing with various identity
masks, impersonating a Jewish, a Frenchman, an Irish, a Japanese, to end up in a Formosan
disguise.
The controversy around the publication of George Psalmanazar’s Description of Formosa in
London was not solved at the time of its publication, in 1704, nor was it settled 60 years later, when
his Memoirs of ***, Commonly known by the name of George Psalmanazar; a reputed native of
Formosa came out as a posthumous apology on the part of the author for the lies and inaccurate
illustration of Formosa and its society.
As a creator of fantasies in the English society, as well as a designer of Oriental constructs,
Psalmanazar imposed himself on an eighteenth century reading public as the figure of the fictional
oriental traveller. His various masks were to show up one by one, as he played with different
identities and created such a perfect disguise that nobody has read through it so far. The roles and
identities he assumed were as diverse as his writings themselves. What seems controversial is the
fact that the collection of qualifications he received ranges from the most appreciative remarks,
such as history writer, religious authority, Hebrew scholar, “an instant celebrity” (Keevak 2004:
101), and a regular man, to the most despising and biting comments: “the penitent charlatan”
(Keevak 2004: 113), an impostor, a marginal man and a trickster, as well as “a professed cannibal”
and “hack world maker” (Eilon 173). Recently, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has

11
run him down, but recognized his authority at the same time: he is introduced as impostor and
author.
Since Psalmanazar was attributed the name of trickster, we can assume that, as a trickster, he
was positively identified with creative powers, even if he departed from the norm and behaved in
the most antisocial manner. From this perspective, Psalmanazar is to be considered as an anti-
Establishment author, rejecting the official world with its system of values and, in a Rabelaisian
manner, using lies and false historical accounts as a form of the unofficial truth. In Abrahams’
terms, the trickster is somewhere in-between categories and her portrait of the trickster reminds
narrative criticism of the margins that surrounded Psalmanazar’s life: imposture and penitence, guilt
and remorse, chaos and regularity.
Another image that is associated with the figure of Psalmanazar is that of the impostor. The
impostor is characterized by the struggle between two dominant identities in the individual: “the
temporarily focused and strongly assertive imposturous one” and “the frequently amazingly crude
and poorly knit one from which the impostor has emerged” (Greenacre 364). Whether Psalmanazar
was a sick person impersonating an impostor or simply a satirist of the time, it is hard to affirm.
What is certain is that his dual personality offered him the opportunity to be both. His addiction to
laudanum is mentioned in support of his fraudulent nature.
Psalmanazar showed up in London in 1703, and “took the city by storm” (Keevak: 1), not to
mention that in the same year the British Isles were literally taken by the great storm, which greatly
affected Southern England and the English Channel.
Everything that is known about his life and work comes from his autobiographical Memoirs
of ***, Commonly known by the name of George Psalmanazar; a reputed native of Formosa, which
was published, after his death, in 1764. According to his Memoirs, he was born in the South of
France to a Catholic family, and his mother educated him, while his father had to leave the family
and reside in Germany, because of some circumstances that are not revealed. His real name is not
revealed either, fact explained by his concern for the reputation of his family.
He introduced himself as a student enrolled at the age of six in a free-school ran by two
Franciscan clerics. He described himself as endowed with a great talent for languages, being praised
by his linguistic abilities to such a degree that he must have developed an excessively high opinion
of his own qualities. His mother was convinced by the two monks to send young George to a Jesuit
College, where he could improve his Greek and Latin studies. He was not pleased with his tutors,
disregarded and considered them poorly equipped for the proper study of Latin and Greek,
suspecting that his Jesuit tutor of Rhetoric had become a member of the Jesuit order because of his
father’s donations to the Jesuits. During this time, his mother sent him a letter notifying him that he
could be enrolled in a philosophy class that was set up by a Dominican. Psalmanazar was

12
disappointed again to find out that the Dominican’s teachings were another proof of professional
incompetence. In his future book on Formosa he will attack the Roman practices under the mask of
Formosan customs.
As a result of his disappointment, Psalmanazar considered his education useless and lost his
interest in serious study, being convinced that his later failure was due to the ineffectiveness of the
educational system, inhabited by unfit teachers. He went to Avignon to work as a tutor of Latin to
the nephews of a wealthy family, but he was left with no financial support. To work out this
situation, he manufactured his first disguise: an Irish Catholic, persecuted in his own country,
seeking refuge in France, where the Irish were regarded with sympathy. He went to Rome, and then
to his father in Germany. At his father’s suggestion, who did not know his disguise as an Irishman,
he embarked for another picaresque journey to the Low Countries, where he posed as Japanese
converted to Christianity, another “clever combination of the most fantastically exotic and the
reassuringly familiar” (Keevak 2004: 4). The following mask he created for himself was that of a
pagan Japanese. He became a hired soldier in a Dutch army and his Memoirs attested to his most
vicious habit, that of swearing, which was “enough to make him feel he had lost all sense of
religion” (Swiderski 1991: 238).
In 1702, “George with the funny last name”3 met Innes in Holland and was baptized once
again, which was a great sin in the eyes of the Church, as he had already been baptized as a child.
He took the name George, after the commander of his regiment. It is interesting to notice the thick
net of interests and conspiracies that were created around this story. Innes saw in Psalmanazar a
perfect gate to ascend in his professional career. He could read through Psalmanazar’s disguise but
said nothing and took advantage of his gaining control over the whole situation. Psalmanazar
became a mere puppet caught in a web of religious and political interests. The chaplain carefully
prepared their arrival in London, as well as a new identity for his accomplice: a Christian Formosan.
Psalmanazar offered the aristocracy of the time the perfect story for their public display and
exchange of cultural practices. It didn’t matter who he really was as long as it encouraged and
reassured their pre-conceived notions of other worlds. Basically, they allowed themselves to be
enchanted by Psalmanazar’s deception, creating a suitable ground for the future ‘Psalmanazarian’
stories. They were ‘psalmanazarized’ with enchantment. Not only did he have little trouble
pretending to be what he claimed, but he also had little trouble making others believe he was what
he claimed. Keevak would argue that his success was due both to his audacity and intelligence “to
create a culture for himself and to keep his tissue of lies consistent”, as well as to the fact that “in
1704, a Formosan was whatever he said one was” (Keevak, 2004: 12). In other words, as a

3
For a detailed context in which Hemingway makes some references to the case of Psalmanazar, consult the article on
“Our Amateur Impostors” published in Hemingway, Ernest. Dateline: Toronto. The Complete Toronto Star Dispatches,
1920-1924. Ed. William White. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985.

13
concluding reply to all the objections rose against him, he nearly challenged his contemporaries to
go to Formosa and confute him if they could.
The creative Psalmanazar was even brought to the attention of the Royal Society, but it
seemed that all the confrontations between Psalmanazar and the scientists were neither relevant, nor
very productive. Psalmanazar managed to take in the learned men of his age, and the talented
Formosan had the correct answers for all the objections against him. Moreover, in spite of the
conclusions published in The Journal of the Royal Society, which clearly contradicted
Psalmanazar’s claims, the Royal Society made no public statement related to this situation.
So, he went on to publish his fabulous stories. In 1704 the first edition of his Formosan tales
was published under the full title An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, An
Island Subject to the Emperor of Japan, Giving an Account of the Religion, Customs, manners, etc.,
of the Inhabitants. Together with a relation of what happen’d to the Author in his Travels;
particularly his conferences with the Jesuits and others, in several parts of Europe. Also the
History and Reasons of his Conversion to Christianity, with his Objections against it (in defence of
Paganism) and their Answers. To which is Prefix’d a Preface in Vindication of himself from the
Reflections of a Jesuit lately come from China, with an Account of What Passed between them,
signed by G.P, “a native of the said island, now in London.”
Psalmanazar mentioned that his work was first published in Latin, and then translated into
English by a certain Mr. Oswald. The new publication satisfied eighteenth century tastes for
wonders and novelty, as it displayed geographical details, religious particulars, and travel reports,
all related in a reliable first person narrative.
The book stood out as an attack directed at the Jesuits, as the main evil character in the book
was Father de Rhode. Psalmanazar introduced him as his tutor in Formosa who seduced him into
accompanying him to Europe. Psalmanazar presented himself as a person belonging to a very high
rank in Formosa, the son of a King. He used his high status to explain his fair skin, as nobility in
Formosa lived underground most of the time and was not exposed to the sun.
The Description abounds in fabulous stories, but the details are not very much exaggerated
in this first edition: it described an almost Utopian society, resembling Europe in the illustrations,
religious life, social organization, and education curriculum. The author presented Formosa as a
very well structured, hierarchical society, in which polygamy was admitted, as it ensured the
necessary supply of the annually sacrificed boys, 18,000 in number. The god of Formosa was
represented in the shape of an elephant or an ox, the image of the priests in the funeral procession
was similar to that of the bishops, and the upper class ladies looked like medieval clothing. Meat
was usually eaten raw and cannibalism was not so often practiced in the first English edition.

14
Human sacrifice was a common practice, yet, at the same time, the Formosans had an elaborate
alphabet, and they were taught Greek and Latin in school.
Psalmanazar’s Formosan alphabet is his own invention, even if the letters remind the reader
of other languages, such as Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, although Psalmanazar pretended he was not
familiar with Hebrew at the time of his writing. When he invented the Formosan language,
Psalmanazar used the languages he knew. He could not have made up a language out of nothing,
but based on what he knew. Early in the seventeenth century, the philosophes developed an interest
in building a universal language for two main reasons: on the one hand, the Enlightenment
paradigm needed to solve the problem of how to communicate with non-Europeans, and on the
other hand a language was needed that would mirror nature in a more accurate way: a sophisticated
language of science and philosophy.
Psalmanazar defined his ‘invented’ language close to an ideal language: easy, musical, and
copious. In all cases, in his translation of the Lord’s Prayer into Formosan, the language is not only
the product of his imagination. His fabricated language is a mixture of Latin, Greek, and Italian, and
the Formosan language is written from right to left, in keeping with the Oriental habit. This was an
aspect that had a significant contribution to the success of the book.
The eighteenth-century reader was in search of the exotic and the fabulous, and
Psalmanazar’s story met the two requirements. There were so many fabulous reports written before
him, that he was encouraged to write his own inventions. Consequently, the curious audience called
for a second edition of his book. The event was not to pass unnoticed as The London Gazette no.
4011 from Monday, April 17 to Thursday, April 20 1704, enclosed the notice of the book being
published.
After the publication of the first edition, Psalmanazar was sent to Oxford by the Bishop of
London, to whom he dedicated his work, to teach the students his Formosan language. However, it
appeared that he was assigned a tutor and worked on his second edition of the Description, which
was to reveal more exotic practices and more fabulous tales about the Formosan inhabitants and
their customs: new illustrations were added (a map of Formosa and “The Idol of the Devil”), as well
as spicy details.
What was depicted as a utopian society in the first edition of the Description turned into a
dystopian vision of Formosa in the edition that followed it. Order and “civilized savagery” was to
be replaced by a barbarian state of things: cannibalism was now a common practice, a map of
Formosa was included, which was not present in the former edition, and people worshipped the
image of the devil. A very long and detailed Second Preface was added, containing 25 answers to
his detractors’ objections. His pretence to relating a true and accurate account was clearly expressed
in his dedication to Bishop Compton, as well as in the Preface:

15
 “When I had met with so many Romantick Stories of all those remote Eastern Countries,
especially of my own, which had been impos’d upon you as undoubted Truths and
universally believ’d, then I was much discourag’d from proceeding in my Description of it;
yet since Truth ought to dispel these Clouds of fabulous Reports, and I could not escape
uncensur’d even by myself, should I (by my silence) suffer you to remain in ignorance, or
rather deceiv’d by misrepresentations, I thought myself indispensably oblig’d to give you a
more faithful History of the Isle of Formosa, than as yet you have met with.” (Description,
The Preface, 1705).

The question is not whether Psalmanazar was an impostor or not, but how could his imposture
succeed so brilliantly in an Age of Reason? Paradoxically, despite his reputation as impostor and
liar, Psalmanazar was used as a source for the future imaginary voyages that were to be published in
English literature. Therefore, he is not to be considered a footnote in the sense of unimportant and
overlooked; rather, he should be referred to as a character that offered further insight into the
context of his own age. Psalmanazar was used as a source of inspiration for Oliver Goldsmith’s
Citizen of the World, Jonathan Swift’s Travels into Remote Nations of the World. By Lemuel
Gulliver (1726), and Swift’s An Account of the Court and Empire of Japan.
The second edition did not meet the success expected, and soon Psalmanazar was to become
the neglected and obscure Formosan, who once used to be the talk of London. He distanced himself
from the public life and passed from one activity from another to be able to support himself
financially. He had taken to porcelain decorating and fan painting before becoming a Grub Street
ghost-writer, a Hebrew authority, and a true convert and religious person, according to his Memoirs.
The man behind the pseudonymous name of George Psalmanazar died in 1763, leaving after
him his Memoirs, a lot of unanswered questions, and very different editions of his Description of
Formosa. The talents displayed by Mr. Psalmanazar were multiple, but that of putting on identities
and his ability to disguise himself in various manners was Psalmanazar’s basic talent. He knew
Formosa vas very little known to Europeans and he decided to accuse of falsity the little that was
known. He also kept to some principles he set up for himself: during his whole life, he was very
faithful to the principle that he should never go back to what he had previously stated. It was
because of respecting this principle that he succeeded in inventing and reinventing himself in a
plausible manner, according to the circumstances. Psalmanazar had a double role: he was both the
creator of his own perception of another world, and also the creation of the century he lived in.

References

16
Defoe, Daniel. A Letter to Mr. Bisset. London: J. Baker, 1709.

Eilon, Daniel. “Gulliver’s Fellow-Traveller Psalmanazar.” British Journal for Eighteenth Century
Studies. 8.2 (Autumn 1985): 173-177.

Greenacre, Phyllis. “The Impostor.” The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. XXVII (1958): 359-382.

Keevak, Michael. “Johnson’s Psalmanazar.” The Age of Johnson, 15 (2004): 97-120.

Psalmanazar, George. An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa: An Island Subject

to the Emperor of Japan. ... To which is prefix’d, a Preface in Vindication of Himself from the
Reflections of a Jesuit… By George Psalmanaazaar…, Illustrated with several cuts. London:
printed for Dan Brown; G. Strahan, and W. Davis; and Fran. Coggan, 1704.

Psalmanazar, George. An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island Subject

to the Emperor of Japan. ... To which is prefix'd, a preface in vindication of himself from the
reflections of a Jesuit ... By George Psalmanaazaar, ... The second edition corrected, ... Illustrated
with several cuts. To which are added, a map, and the figure of an idol not in the former edition.
London : printed for Mat. Wotton, Abel Roper and B. Lintott; Fr. Coggan, G. Strahan and W.
Davis, 1705.

Psalmanazar, George. Memoirs of ****. Commonly known by the name of George Psalmanazar; a
reputed native of Formosa. Written by himself, in order to be published after his death: ... The
second edition, London: printed for R. Davis; J. Newbery; L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1765.

Swiderski, Richard M. The False Formosan: George Psalmanazar and the Eighteenth - Century
Experiment of Identity. San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1991.

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