Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon, at Lime Grove in the town of Putney, Surrey. … See more

Following a stay at Bath in 1752 to improve his health at the age of 15, Gibbon was sent by his father to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner. He was ill-suited, however, to the college … See more

The years following Gibbon's completion of The History were filled largely with sorrow and increasing physical discomfort. He had returned to London in late 1787 to oversee the publication process alongside Lord Sheffield. … See more

A view frequently attributed to Gibbon, that the Roman Empire fell due to its embrace of Christianity, is not widely accepted by scholars today. Gibbon argued that with the empire's new Christian character, large sums of we… See more

• Essai sur l’Étude de la Littérature (London: Becket & De Hondt, 1761).
• Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of [Vergil's] 'The Aeneid' (London: Elmsley, 1770).
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Em… See more

• "Lettre sur le gouvernement de Berne" [Letter No. IX. Mr. Gibbon to *** on the Government of Berne], in Miscellaneous Works, First (1796) edition, vol. 1 (below). Scholars differ on the date of its compositio… See more