While a member of the British Museum, the post of “Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts” was created for Charles Rieu. As part of his duties in this post he produced this present historical catalogue. The present collection records and describes the 483 Turkish manuscripts in the Museum at that time. Most of the manuscripts are in Western Turkish, and a few in Eastern. The material is helpfully categorized according to the area of particular concern to the manuscript. Various aspects of Islamic religious practice are covered by several manuscripts. Other general areas represented are history, sciences and arts, philology, and poetry. The Eastern Turkish materials are given their own section. Each manuscript is meticulously described, and the volume contains useful indices of titles, personal names, and subjects. A must have for any Turkologist, this historic catalogue is now once again available.

Charles Pierre Henri Rieu (1820-1902) was a Swiss Orientalist. Educated at the University of Bonn, he took at appointment at the British Museum where a position was specially created for him. After being the Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts at the museum, he became a professor of Arabic at Cambridge University.