"THE GREATEST HISTORICAL WORK EVER WRITTEN": GIBBON'S LANDMARK DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, 1804 FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

GIBBON, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Philadelphia: William Y. Birch & Abraham Small, 1804-05. Eight volumes. Octavo, contemporary full brown tree calf gilt, burgundy morocco spine labels. $9800.

First American edition set, of one of the greatest classics of Western thought, with three folding engraved maps, in a beautiful contemporary binding.

"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 equaled to this day; and the result was clothed in an 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 first edition was published in six volumes from 1776 to 1788. This first edition includes Gibbon's Memoirs of My Life and Writing at the end of the last volume. Norton, 102.

Scattered foxing to text, a bit of damstaining to first few leaves of Volume I and last few leaves of Volume VIII; expertly repaired closed tear to last leaf of Volume III, affecting text but not readability; expert paper repairs to G1 and G2 in Volume V, affecting side notes but not readability. Folding maps with offsetting and light embrowning, as is typical of the era. Beautifully bound.