One Thousand and One Nights is often known in English as the Arabian Nights. It is a collection of West and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age.
The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators and scholars.
The bulk of the text is in prose, although verse is occasionally used to express heightened emotion, and for songs and riddles. Most of the poems are single couplets or quatrains, although some are longer.
The Middle Eastern folk tales were not part of The Nights in Arabic versions but were added into the collection by Antoine Galland and other European translators.