Penguin books ceo

British poet (1887–1972)

Emile Victor RieuCBE (10 February 1887^[1] – 11 May 1972) was a British classicist, publisher, poet and translator. He initiated the Penguin Classics series of books in 1946 and edited it for twenty years.

Biography

Rieu was born in London,^[1] the youngest child of the Swiss OrientalistCharles Pierre Henri Rieu (1820–1902), and his wife Agnes, daughter of Julius Heinrich Hisgen of Hamburg.^[2] He was a scholar of St Paul's School and Balliol College, Oxford, gaining a first in Classical Honours Moderations in 1908. In 1914 he married Nelly Lewis, daughter of a Pembrokeshire businessman. They had two sons (one was D. C. H. Rieu) and two daughters. Rieu died in London in 1972.

Publishing and translating

Having worked for the Bombay branch of Oxford University Press, Rieu joined the publishers Methuen in London in 1923, where he was managing director from 1933 to 1936, and then academic and literary adviser Ev rieu biography images.