[Kırk Vezir hikayesi] - [قرق وزير حكايەسی]

This volume contains the well-known tale of the Forty Viziers, translated from an Arabic original called Ḥikāyat arbaᶜīn ṣubḥ wa masāᵓby Ahmet Mısri, better known as Şeyhzade, in the time of Murat II. This copy is defective at the beginning and appears to be of a rather older recension than Add MS 7882, given its archaic language. The manuscript is undated but was likely copied in the 17th century CE.

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Other copies can be found at Or 7322, Add MS 5968, Add MS 7882, and Stowe Or 20. For more information on the text, please see Rieu, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, p. 216.

Tarih-i Kırk Vezir (Dersaadet: Matbaa-yı Ahmet Kâmil, 1325 [1909]). Other copies were also produced in Istanbul in 1283 AH (1866-67 CE) and 1285 AH (1868-69 CE). For more information on these, see Journal asiatique, 6e série, Art. XI, p. 484; and XIV, p. 87. The introduction and the tales of the first twenty days, edited by H. N. Belletête, were printed posthumously: Ahmet-i Misri, Contes turcs en langue turque, extraits du livre intitulé, Les quarante viziers, edited by Belletête, Henri Nicolas (Paris: de l'Imprimerie impériale, 1812). An incomplete French translation, by Pétis de la Croix, will be found in the Panthéon Littéraire, Contes orientaux, pp. 301-367. A German version of the whole work, from a Dresden manuscript, was published by Behrnauer: Die vierzig Veziere oder weisen Meister, edited by Behrnauer, Walter Friedrich Adolf (Leipzig: Teubner, 1851). A more complete translation is that of E. J. W. Gibb, which comprises no less than 112 tales collected from all available sources: Gibb, E. J. W., The history of the vezirs or the story of the forty morns and eves (London: Redway, 1886).