KNOLLES, Richard (c. 1545-1610), author of the History of the Turks, was a native of Northamptonshire, and was born about 1545. In 1560 he entered Lincoln’s College, Oxford, of which four years later he was elected fellow. After graduating M.A. he left Oxford to become master of the free school at Sandwich in Kent, where he died in 1610.

In 1603 Knolles published A General History of the Turks, a second edition of which appeared in 1610. The work was continued up to date in several editions subsequently published, the best known being that by Sir Paul Rycaut, 1687-1700, who gives a continuation to 1699. The history of Knolles was highly praised by Dr Johnson, and, though now entirely superseded, it has for the time in which it was written considerable merits at least as regards style and arrangement. Knolles also published a translation of Bodin’s Respublica in 1606, but the Grammaticae Latinae, Graecae, et Hebraicae Compendium, and the Rudiments of Hebrew Grammar, attributed to him by Anthony Wood and in most works of reference, were, as is shown in the Athenaezim of August 6th, 1881, the works of the Rev. Hanserd Knollys, a Baptist minister.