Author: Knolles, Richard.
Title: THE GENERALL HISTORIE OF THE TURKES, from the first beginning of that nation to the rising of the Othoman familie: with all the notable expeditions of the Christian princes against them. Together with the lives and conquests of the Othoman kings and emperours, vnto the yeare 1610
Description: [London] : printed by Adam Islip, 1610. 2nd Ed. Folio. [x] + 1303pp. + [36]pp. Dec. and historiated initial letters, dec. head and tail pieces, 29 textual portraits, textual ‘picture of the Bridge made ouer Danveivs’. [Engraved t.p. and 2pp. dedication supplied in facsimile only, and lacking penultimate leaf of Table and blanks to front and rear], 3 leaves of dedication with repairs and with some loss particularly along gutter hinge of second leaf with marginal textual loss, signature Pii with marginal loss slightly affecting text, occasional neat marginalia, some browning and minor soiling, occasional minor textual tears and chipping, old sums to tail of last leaf, modern e.ps., contemporary calf boards, some minor wear and surface loss, sympathetic modern reback in gilt lettered calf. ¶ ESTC S112916 ‘Enlarged from the first edition. The title page is engraved and signed: Laurence Iohnson, sculpsit. It has been counted as leaf of plates. The first leaf and the last leaf are blank. ‘The lives of the Othoman kings and emperors’ has separate title page dated 1609 [following pp.128]; pagination and register are continuous.’ The great history of the Turks by Knolles, the prose of of which earned the praise of Samuel Johnson, and was later utilized by such travellers as Byron for the ‘oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry.’ The fine medallion portraits of the Turkish kings emperors and sultans together with their (mostly) Christian adversaries were adapted by Laurence Johnson from Jean Jacques Boisard’s ‘Vitae et Icones Sultanorum’ (1596). Richard Knolles (late 1540s–1610), historian and translator. ODNB ‘... [the above work] first published in 1603. Compiled from a range of Byzantine and western histories, travellers' reports and letters, together with material from Leunclavius's recent Latin translation of a late fifteenth-century Ottoman chronicle, Knolles's was the first major work on the subject to appear in English, and was quickly recognized as a masterpiece of narrative synthesis. There is no evidence that he had any original personal reason for choosing to write a history of the Ottomans; the suggestion came possibly from Sir Peter Manwood in the light of growing interest in the Ottoman state in London following the chartering in 1581 of the Turkey (subsequently Levant) Company and increased commercial and diplomatic relations with the empire. A second edition appeared in 1610, incorporating both a continuation of the history to 1609 (a total of 1296 folio pages) and, appended to the main narrative, Knolles's fifteen-page 'Discourse on the greatnesse of the Ottoman Turkes', analysing the strengths and weaknesses of the state ...’

Keywords: VOYAGES AND TRAVEL; NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST


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