GIBBON, EDWARD

born May 8 [April 27, old style], 1737, Putney, Surrey, Eng. died Jan. 16, 1794, London English rationalist historian and scholar best known as the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (177688), a continuous narrative from the 2nd century AD to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Additional reading Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vol. (177688), was issued in numerous later editions, including the one ed. by J.B. Bury, 7 vol. (18961902), with valuable introduction and commentaries. John, Lord Sheffield (John Holroyd, Earl of Sheffield) (ed.), The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esquire, new ed., 5 vol. (1814), contains Gibbon's Memoirs, a large selection of his letters, and a number received by him from others. J.E. Norton (ed.), Letters, 3 vol. (1956), is the fullest collection of all the letters known at that dateinvaluable for both its information and its style.Studies of his life and works include James Cotter Morison, Gibbon (1878, reissued 1968); G.M. Young, Gibbon (1932, reissued 1974); D.M. Low, Edward Gibbon, 17371794 (1937); Edward James Oliver, Gibbon and Rome (1958); Harold L. Bond, The Literary Art of Edward Gibbon (1960, reprinted 1975); Gavin de Beer, Gibbon and His World (1968); Joseph Ward Swain, Edward Gibbon the Historian (1966); R.N. Parkinson, Edward Gibbon (1973); Patricia B. Craddock, Young Edward Gibbon, Gentleman of Letters (1982), and Edward Gibbon, Luminous Historian, 17721794 (1989); and Roy Porter, Gibbon: Making History (1988).