Scheherazade, the Storyteller of the Thousand and One Nights

Scheherazade is the storyteller of the Arabian Nights. Every story in the book is one she tells to King Shahryar, night after night, for a thousand and one nights.

She is the elder daughter of the king's vizier. Richard Burton's translation says she had gathered a thousand books of history and the stories of old kings, and knew poems by heart. She was wise, witty and kind.

When the king made a cruel law against his brides, Scheherazade offered to marry him herself, to save the other girls of the city. Her plan needed her little sister, Dunyazad, who asked for a story late each night. Scheherazade always stopped at an exciting part when the sun came up, so the king had to wait for the next night to hear the end. You can read how it began in the prologue.

Her name is spelled many ways. Burton writes Shahrazad. Wikipedia explains that the name is usually read as "born of the city" or "daughter of the realm", from the Persian words for city and born.