Condemned to die on the word of jealous courtiers, the young vizier Bakhtyār bargains for his life the only way he can: with a story a night. Over ten dark evenings in a Persian prison he unfolds tales of rash kings, false friends, hidden heirs, and fortunes lost and found — each one a mirror held up to the monarch who has signed his death warrant. The Bakhtyār Nāma is one of the great frame-tale romances of the medieval Persian world, a cousin to the Thousand and One Nights and the Seven Sages of Rome, whose earliest surviving manuscript dates to 1228. This edition presents the complete, unabridged original text — every tale, every night — with a new introduction tracing the romance's origins, structure, and long afterlife, and reader's notes illuminating names, customs, and storytelling conventions. A treasury for lovers of world literature and the art of the tale. Part of The Founding Texts Library.