Richard Knolles

Richard Knolles (c. 1545 – July 1610) was an English historian and translator, known for his historical account of the Ottoman Empire, the first major description in the English language.

Life A native of Northamptonshire, Knolles was born in the 1540s, probably at Cold Ashby. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he graduated with a BA in January 1565. Knolles then became a fellow at Lincoln College, and obtained his MA there in July 1570. Some time after 1571, he left Oxford to become headmaster at a grammar school in Sandwich, Kent, which was founded by Sir Roger Manwood in about 1563.

After Manwood's death in 1592, his son, Sir Peter became Knolles' professional and literary patron and encouraged him to write. Knolles' history was the first chronicle of the military and political aspects of the Ottoman Empire to be written in English. Previous histories had been available only in Latin and were thus not widely circulated.

Knolles also published a composite translation of Jean Bodin's Les Six livres de la République in 1606, under the title The Six Bookes of a Commonweale. It is based on both the French and Latin versions of Bodin's text and was dedicated to Sir Peter Manwood.

He completed a translation from the Latin of William Camden's Britannia, which was said to be "much estemed" by Camden, but was never published. The manuscript survives in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

The Generall Historie of the Turkes Dates of editions 1603 – original edition 1610 1621 – includes continuation by Edward Grimeston 1631 – includes continuation by Sir Thomas Roe, English Ambassador in Constantinople 1638 1687 1700 – Sir Paul Rycaut edition 1701 – two-volume abridged edition by John Savage