Payne wrote that a 1709 entry of Galland's diary indicated that he learned the tale from an Arab storyteller.Īthough the Aladdin story has been told many times in print, on stage and film over the centuries, according to the production notes for Aladdin, the idea to make an animated musical version, was suggested by lyricist Howard Ashman, who was also producer of the 1989 Disney production, The Little Mermaid.

According to the introduction of John Payne's 1901 revised edition of his book, Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp, the story was not part of the original collection. In the early eighteenth century, the collection was translated from Arabic and published in Europe by Antoine Galland under the title, The Arabian Nights' Entertainment. The story of Aladdin is included in One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of folk tales from the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa, that was compiled around 850 or 950 A.D. Summary and notes were written by participant Taylor Miller, a student at University of Texas at Austin, with Janet Staiger as academic advisor.

The summary and note for this entry were completed with participation from the AFI Academic Network.

Aladdin old man in prison