"Compiled from a range of Byzantine and western histories, travelers' reports and letters, together with material from Leunclavius' recent Latin translation of a late 15th-century Ottoman chronicle, Knolles' was the first major work on the subject to appear in English, and was quickly recognized as a masterpiece of narrative synthesis. Subsequent editions in 1621, 1631, and 1638 included continuations by other writers. Knolles' literary style was admired by such writers as Johnson and Byron, and the work's reputation as an engrossing account survived well into the 19th century" (ODNB).

“Richard Knolles (late 1540s-1610) was born in Northamptonshire. When exactly Knolles began work on his most ambitious scholarly achievement The Historie of the Turkes is difficult to ascertain.  The first folio edition appeared in 1603.  James VI of Scotland became James I of England in March of that year following the death of Elizabeth I.  Knolles took adavntage of the dynastic transition by dedicating the work to “the High and Mightie Prince James”.

Knolles’ Historie is based heavily on a range of sixteenth-century printed chronicles and reports. It is, therefore, essentially a synthesis of other works, but a carefully crafted synthesis produced in English.  Nothing of this scale and detail had appeared before, in English, on the Ottomans, and it would be another fifty years before a subsequent work in English would become the authority on the subject. Despite this fact, both Samuel Jonson and Lord Byron turned to Knolles centuries later, and both alluded to the richness of his prose style. William Shakespeare, moreover, likely used Knolles’ work (and possibly an earlier manuscript version) as a source for his Othello (ca. 1603-1604).” (University of Toronto, Victoria College, The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies)