The Perfumed Garden

The Perfumed Garden is a fifteenth-century Arabic sex manual and work of erotic literature written by Sheikh Nefzaoui.

A uniquely entertaining collection of tales, frank and sound advice on sexual relations, The Perfumed Garden as translated by Sir Richard Burton, is a monument to his encyclopedic Arabic scholarship and knowledge of Eastern life.

This is a book that delights in the humorous possibilities of sexual expression, and treats these in an urbane style reminiscent of Chaucer and Boccaccio: an explicit, but consummately witty celebration of erotica.

The reputation acquired by this timeless masterwork is similar to that of the Arabian Nights.

Ranked along with the Kama Sutra, The Perfumed Garden is one of the few great books on the art of love.

SIR RICHARD BURTON (1821-1890) was one of the greatest traveler-explorers of history. Geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, and diplomat, his life has recently been chronicled both in biography (Captain Sir Richard Burton) and film (Mountains of the Moon).