Lane,

Lane, EDWARD WILLIAM, the most eminent of English Arabic scholars, and the well-known translator of the Arabian Nights, was the son of the Rev. Theophilus Lane, LL.D., prebendary of Hereford, and his wife, Sophia Gardiner, a niece of Gainsborough the painter, and was born 17th September 1801. After education at the grammar-schools of Bath and Hereford, he began life, like his brother Richard (q.v.), as an engraver; but the need of a warmer climate took him to Egypt, and with that country the whole of his subsequent work was connected. The result of his first (1825-28) and second (1833-35) visits to Egypt was his Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836; 5th ed. 1871), a work immediately recognised as of unrivalled accuracy and completeness, and still the standard authority on the subject. This was followed by the translation of the Thousand and One Nights (1838-40; 2d ed. 1859, and many reprints), which was the first accurate rendering of the tales, and (though necessarily abridged, on account of the objectionable nature of some of the incidents) is still the standard library edition. The numerous and instructive notes on Mohammedan life, literature, and superstition appended to the translation have been separately issued under the title of Arabian Society in the Middle Ages (1883). A volume of Selections from the Koran appeared in 1843 (2d ed. 1879). Lane's third visit to Egypt (1842-49) was devoted to laborious preparation for the great work of his life, the Arabic Lexicon, for which his extraordinary familiarity with the Arabic language and literature and his intimacy with the learned of Cairo peculiarly fitted him. The cost of this vast undertaking was borne by the fourth Duke of Northumberland and afterwards by his widow. Lane toiled without cessation for twenty years, with the zeal of a Scaliger, before he began printing, and then his first five quarto volumes came out (1863-74). The Lexicon was instantly accepted throughout Europe as the supreme authority. He died at Worthing, 10th August 1876, before completing it, but the publication of the remaining portions was carried on (1876-90) by his grand-nephew, S. Lane-Poole. In recognition of his unwearied devotion to learning he received a Civil List pension; the French Institute in 1864 elected him a correspondent; and he was made a Doctor of Literature at the tercentenary of the University of Leyden. See S. Lane-Poole, Life of Edward William Lane (1877).