GIBBON, Edward.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
“THE GREATEST HISTORICAL WORK EVER WRITTEN”: EDWARD GIBBON'S MASTERPIECE THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1782-1788.
$5,500.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-151050
* Custom Clamshell Boxes are hand made by the Harcourt Bindery upon request and take approximately 60 days to complete
Mixed first edition edition set of Gibbon's masterpiece. Quarto, 6 volumes bound in full contemporary mottled calf, red gilt morocco labels, raised bands, the covers with a gilt rule, half-titles to volumes IV-VI, frontispiece portrait in volume I, 3 maps (2 folding). Volumes I-III early printings, first editions of volumes IV-VI. In very good condition.
"This masterpiece of historical penetration and literary style has remained one of the ageless historical works Gibbon brought a width of vision and a critical mastery of the available sources which have not been equalled to this day; and the result was clothed in inimitable prose" (PMM 222). "For 22 years Gibbon was a prodigy of steady and arduous application. His investigations extended over almost the whole range of intellectual activity for nearly 1500 years. And so thorough were his methods that the laborious investigations of German scholarship, the keen criticisms of theological zeal, and the steady researches of (two) centuries have brought to light very few important errors in the results of his labors. But it is not merely the learning of his work, learned as it is, that gives it character as a history. It is also that ingenious skill by which the vast erudition, the boundless range, the infinite variety, and the gorgeous magnificence of the details are all wrought together in a symmetrical whole. It is still entitled to be esteemed as the greatest historical work ever written" (Adams, Manual of Historical Literature, 146-7).
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
$5,500.00
In Stock
