First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Desire has a tattered history. For over a century, it has been known in English through Sir Richard Burton's bizarre translation (from the French) which consistently elaborated and misrepresented the original. If ever a book needed demystifying, it is this one. Although remarkably lewd at times, it does not linger over details nor does it contrive to excite. It does not, therefore, qualify as pornography. In fact,

"The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Desire" is nothing more than a manual for the ordinary, married man of its author's time and place (Tunisia, in the early fifteenth century) -- but one that is not without some entertainment value. This translation is the first English version based upon an established Arabic text, and the first to be translated directly from the original Arabic.

The Perfumed Garden by Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nafzawi is a fifteenth-century Arabic sex manual and work of erotic literature. The full title of the book is The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight (al-rawd al-'atir fi nuzhat al-khatir). The book presents opinions on what qualities men and women should have to be attractive, gives advice on sexual technique, warnings about sexual health, and recipes to remedy sexual maladies. It has a section on the interpretation of dreams. Interspersed with these there are a number of stories which are intended to give context and amusement. According to the introduction of Colville's English translation, Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nafzawi probably wrote The Perfumed Garden sometime between 1410 and 1434. Sheikh Nefzawi, full name Abu Abdullah Muhammad ben Umar Nafzawi, was born in the Nefzawa region in the south of present-day Tunisia. Circa 1420 he compiled at the request of the Hafsid ruler of Tunis, Abu Faris Abd al-Aziz al-Mutawakkil, the present work. The reputation acquired by this work in the Arab world was similar to that of the Arabian Nights.