Emile Victor RieuCBE (10 February 1887[1] – 11 May 1972) was a Britishclassicist, publisher, poet and translator. He initiated thePenguin Classics series of books in 1946 and edited it for twenty years.
Rieu was born in London,[1] the youngest child of the SwissOrientalistCharles Pierre Henri Rieu (1820–1902), and his wife Agnes, daughter of Julius Heinrich Hisgen ofHamburg.[2] He was a scholar ofSt Paul's School andBalliol College, Oxford, gaining a first in Classical Honours Moderations in 1908. In 1914 he married Nelly Lewis, daughter of aPembrokeshire businessman. They had two sons (one wasD. C. H. Rieu) and two daughters. Rieu died in London in 1972.
Having worked for the Bombay branch ofOxford University Press, Rieu joined the publishersMethuen in London in 1923, where he was managing director from 1933 to 1936, and then academic and literary adviser.
Rieu became best known for his lucid translations ofHomer and for a modern translation of the fourGospels which evolved from his role as editor of a projected (but aborted) Penguin translation of the Bible. Though he had been a lifelong agnostic, his experience translating the Gospels brought him to change and join theChurch of England.[3] His translation of theOdyssey, 1946, was the opener of thePenguin Classics, a series that he founded withSir Allen Lane and edited from 1944 to 1964. According to his son, "[h]is vision was to make available to the ordinary reader, in good modern English, the great classics of every language."[4]
The inspiration for the Penguin Classics series, initially faint, came early in theSecond World War, while bombs were falling. Each night after supper, Rieu would sit with his wife and daughters in London and translate to them passages from theOdyssey. The Penguin editors are said to have been dubious about the commercial prospects for the book (1946), but it became recognised as a classic itself, celebrated for the smooth and original prose, and the forerunner of Penguin's successful series of translated classics.[5]
Often, though, he embroidered Homer's verse, following the principle that has since become known asdynamic equivalence or thought-for-thought translation. Whereas a literal translation would read, for example, "As soon as early-born Dawn appeared, rosy-fingered,"[6] Rieu's version offered, "No sooner had the tender Dawn shown her roses in the East."[7] Some of his renderings were boldly contemporary: "the meeting adjourned," "I could fancy him," and, "It's the kind of thing that gives a girl a good name in town." He sometimes discarded Homer's anonymous immortals: "A god put this into my mind" became "It occurred to me." Rieu also tended to make the characters more courteous by preceding orders with "Kindly..." or "Be good enough to..." Some of these foibles were amended in a revision made by his sonD. C. H. Rieu,[4] who also translatedTheActs of the Apostles bySaint Luke (1957) for the Penguin series.
By the time Rieu retired as general editor of the Penguin Classics series, he had overseen the publication of about 160 volumes. He assiduously tracked down all the scholars and translators he wanted for each, creating a series that combined sound scholarship with readability, and accessibility through authoritative introductions and notes. Rieu himself also translated theIliad (1950), theVoyage of Argo (1959) byApollonius of Rhodes,The Four Gospels (1952) andVirgil'sPastoral Poems (1949). Having become anAnglican in 1947, Rieu sat on the joint churches' committee that oversaw the production of theNew English Bible (1961–70). The genial and witty Rieu was a friend and editorial mentor of the science fiction writerOlaf Stapledon.
Rieu is less known for his children's verse,Cuckoo Calling: a book of verse for youthful people (1933). This he expanded asThe Flattered Flying Fish and Other Poems (1962). A selection of his verse appeared inA Puffin Quartet of Poets (1958).[5] For Rieu himself, his poems were a sideline, aimed mainly at children.[8]
Rieu wrote the short story "Pudding Law: A Nightmare", included inThe Great Book for Girls, published by Oxford University Press.
TheUniversity of Leeds awarded him an honorary D.Litt. in 1949, and he received aCBE in 1953. In 1951, he was chosen president of the Virgil Society and seven years later vice-president of theRoyal Society of Literature.[9]
Irish poetPatrick Kavanagh evoked the translations' crisp and readable character in a poem "On Looking into E. V. Rieu's Homer":
English poetStevie Smith was moved by Rieu's translation of theGospel of Mark to write her poem "The Airy Christ", for which she credited him in her brief introduction.[11]
