1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rieu, Charles Pierre Henri

RIEU, CHARLES PIERRE HENRI (1820–1902), Swiss Orientalist, was born at Geneva in 1820. He studied at Bonn University, where he received his doctor’s degree in 1843. He entered the British Museum in 1847, and after twenty years of service, a new post, that of keeper of Oriental manuscripts, was created for him. He completed in 1871 the second part, dealing with Arabian MSS., of the Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum orientalium, which had been begun by William Cureton, and her issued a supplementary volume in 1894. He also drew up a Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts (1888) and a Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts (4 vols., 1879–95), the latter being a storehouse of information on the books and their authors. In 1895 he was made professor of Arabic in the university of Cambridge in succession to Robertson Smith. He died in London on the 19th of March 1902.