The Story of the Hunchback

Notable Characters

  • The hunchback
  • The tailor
  • The physician
  • The steward
  • The broker
  • The hunchback’s king

Plot Summary

This entertaining story starts with the tailor and his wife finding the hunchback on their way home one night. They invite him to their house to drink, and they are entertained by him. Everything was going fine until the tailor forced a whole fish in the hunchback’s mouth, bone and all, and the hunchback choked and died.

The tailor and his wife took the hunchback to the physician and left before he came down to greet them. The physician tripped down the stairs and hit the hunchback. He thought he killed him, so he took the hunchback to the roof and then to the house of the steward next door.

The steward hit the hunchback with a club because he thought him was there to steal from him. When he noticed that the hunchback was dead, he thought he had killed him, so he dropped him off in an alley, right next to the broker.

The broker was very drunk and had already had someone snatch off his turban. He punched the hunchback because he thought he would take his turban, and then the watchman noticed the scuffle. The hunchback was dead, so the broker thought he had killed him with one punch (again, very drunk).

The broker was set to be executed, but the steward stepped forward and explained that he had actually killed the hunchback. Then the physician stepped forward and said he was the real culprit. Then the tailor came forward and explained that it was all his fault.

It turns out the the hunchback was an entertainer for a king of China, and when this king heard what had happened to his hunchback, he demanded that the culprit be put to death. This started yet another round of the classic “If I tell a story more amazing than this one, will you spare this man’s life?”

And for the first time in The Arabian Nights, we hear the answer we’ve been waiting for: “No, that story is not more amazing than the other one.”

This results in a series of tales told by several people, and each time the king said that he did not think the story was more amazing, and he claimed that he would hang all four of the men for the hunchback’s death.

Finally, the tailor’s extravagant and layered story amazed the king, who asked for the barber to be fetched. In a stunning conclusion, the hunchback is revealed to be alive; he was merely unconscious for a day while all this was happening.

Tales within this Story

  • The Christian Broker’s Tale
  • The Steward’s Tale
  • The Jewish Physician’s Tale
  • The Tailor’s Tale
    • The Barber’s Tale
      • The Tale of the First Brother
      • The Tale of the Second Brother
      • The Tale of the Third Brother
      • The Tale of the Fourth Brother
      • The Tale of the Fifth Brother
      • The Tale of the Sixth Brother