Emile Victor Rieu (1887–1972), by Walter Bird, 1957
e.v rieu (1887–1972), literary scholar and translator, was born in London on 10 February 1887, the fifth son and seventh and youngest child of Charles Pierre Henri Rieu (1820–1902), of Geneva, keeper of oriental manuscripts at the British Museum, and later professor of Arabic at Cambridge, and of his wife, Agnes, daughter of Julius Heinrich Hisgen, of Utrecht. Rieu held scholarships at St Paul's School and Balliol College, Oxford, and took a first in classical honour moderations (1908). After a year's travel abroad for health reasons, he left Oxford.
Rieu joined the Oxford University Press in 1910 and in 1912 was appointed manager in India with instructions to open a branch in Bombay. In 1914 he married Nelly, daughter of Henry Thomas Lewis, businessman, of Pembrokeshire; they had two sons and two daughters. He was commissioned in the 105th Maratha light infantry in 1918, but returned to his work in Bombay in 1919, and left India the same year after repeated attacks of malaria.
In 1923 Rieu became educational manager of Methuen & Co. and held the post with distinction, editing the Methuen's Modern Classics series (with Peter Wait), for which he compiled two volumes of Essays by Modern Masters (1926, 1934). He was promoted to managing director in 1933, but was less happy in this post and resigned in 1936, though he remained an academic and literary adviser to the firm, editing (again with Wait) Modern Masters of Wit and Laughter (1938), and returning to full-time work in 1940. He also served as a major in the Home Guard from 1944.
Only after 1936 did Rieu truly fulfil his promise as a classical scholar, though he had edited a well-chosen textbook anthology (A Book of Latin Poetry) for Methuen in 1925. He formed the habit of translating aloud to his wife, and her interest in the Odyssey encouraged him to start polishing and writing his version. After the interruptions of the war years he offered it to Allen Lane, the owner of Penguin Books. Despite his editorial board's initial reservations about Rieu's lack of scholarly experience and the financial viability of the proposed translation, Lane published Rieu's Odyssey in 1946 (early copies misdated 1945). Penguin's editor-in-chief, William Emrys Williams, observed that Rieu had ‘made a good book better’ (Morpurgo, 216), and the Odyssey became the first of a new series, Penguin Classics in Translation, which Rieu edited until his retirement in 1964.
Rieu went on to translate the Pastoral Poems of Virgil (1949), the Iliad (1950), and Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica as The Voyage of Argo (1959). All exemplified his firm belief that translation should be into contemporary but not too topical prose, readily intelligible to all. This approach certainly played an important part in the remarkable success of Penguin Classics. By 1964 the Odyssey had sold over 2 million copies, and the translations numbered 200. Rieu had sometimes appeared uneasy in business relations, but the growing prestige of Penguin Classics, and the satisfaction he derived from it, made him a relaxed and genial editor who inspired affection and respect from his translators.
Despite his family's Franco-Swiss background, Rieu could seem very much an Englishman of his generation in his attachment to British institutions; he was proud to be both a British subject and a citizen of Geneva. At the age of sixty, Rieu embraced the Anglican church, and went on to prepare his translation of The Four Gospels (1952), and to sit on the joint churches' committee for the New English Bible.
Although basically serious in his temperament and beliefs, Rieu delighted in verbal wit, and wrote light verse in the best English tradition: Cuckoo Calling was published in 1933 and reissued with additional poems in 1962 as The Flattered Flying Fish, and other Poems. His output was modest but well crafted, and a selection was included in A Puffin Quartet of Poets in 1958.
Rieu took unaffected pleasure in the public honours of his later years, perhaps as the result of his early academic disappointment. He was made an honorary LittD (Leeds) in 1949, and appointed CBE in 1953, and was happy in his recognition by the Royal Society of Literature, of which he was a fellow from 1951, vice-president in 1958, and recipient of the Benson silver medal in 1968. He was also president of the Virgil Society in 1951 and was awarded the golden jubilee medal of the Institute of Linguists in 1971. Rieu died in his home, 31 Hurst Avenue, London, on 11 May 1972.
Rieu joined the Oxford University Press in 1910 and in 1912 was appointed manager in India with instructions to open a branch in Bombay. In 1914 he married Nelly, daughter of Henry Thomas Lewis, businessman, of Pembrokeshire; they had two sons and two daughters. He was commissioned in the 105th Maratha light infantry in 1918, but returned to his work in Bombay in 1919, and left India the same year after repeated attacks of malaria.
In 1923 Rieu became educational manager of Methuen & Co. and held the post with distinction, editing the Methuen's Modern Classics series (with Peter Wait), for which he compiled two volumes of Essays by Modern Masters (1926, 1934). He was promoted to managing director in 1933, but was less happy in this post and resigned in 1936, though he remained an academic and literary adviser to the firm, editing (again with Wait) Modern Masters of Wit and Laughter (1938), and returning to full-time work in 1940. He also served as a major in the Home Guard from 1944.
Only after 1936 did Rieu truly fulfil his promise as a classical scholar, though he had edited a well-chosen textbook anthology (A Book of Latin Poetry) for Methuen in 1925. He formed the habit of translating aloud to his wife, and her interest in the Odyssey encouraged him to start polishing and writing his version. After the interruptions of the war years he offered it to Allen Lane, the owner of Penguin Books. Despite his editorial board's initial reservations about Rieu's lack of scholarly experience and the financial viability of the proposed translation, Lane published Rieu's Odyssey in 1946 (early copies misdated 1945). Penguin's editor-in-chief, William Emrys Williams, observed that Rieu had ‘made a good book better’ (Morpurgo, 216), and the Odyssey became the first of a new series, Penguin Classics in Translation, which Rieu edited until his retirement in 1964.
Rieu went on to translate the Pastoral Poems of Virgil (1949), the Iliad (1950), and Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica as The Voyage of Argo (1959). All exemplified his firm belief that translation should be into contemporary but not too topical prose, readily intelligible to all. This approach certainly played an important part in the remarkable success of Penguin Classics. By 1964 the Odyssey had sold over 2 million copies, and the translations numbered 200. Rieu had sometimes appeared uneasy in business relations, but the growing prestige of Penguin Classics, and the satisfaction he derived from it, made him a relaxed and genial editor who inspired affection and respect from his translators.
Despite his family's Franco-Swiss background, Rieu could seem very much an Englishman of his generation in his attachment to British institutions; he was proud to be both a British subject and a citizen of Geneva. At the age of sixty, Rieu embraced the Anglican church, and went on to prepare his translation of The Four Gospels (1952), and to sit on the joint churches' committee for the New English Bible.
Although basically serious in his temperament and beliefs, Rieu delighted in verbal wit, and wrote light verse in the best English tradition: Cuckoo Calling was published in 1933 and reissued with additional poems in 1962 as The Flattered Flying Fish, and other Poems. His output was modest but well crafted, and a selection was included in A Puffin Quartet of Poets in 1958.
Rieu took unaffected pleasure in the public honours of his later years, perhaps as the result of his early academic disappointment. He was made an honorary LittD (Leeds) in 1949, and appointed CBE in 1953, and was happy in his recognition by the Royal Society of Literature, of which he was a fellow from 1951, vice-president in 1958, and recipient of the Benson silver medal in 1968. He was also president of the Virgil Society in 1951 and was awarded the golden jubilee medal of the Institute of Linguists in 1971. Rieu died in his home, 31 Hurst Avenue, London, on 11 May 1972.
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