Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794), was a British scholar who wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a masterpiece of historical writing. The Decline and Fall, as it is sometimes called, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788 and made Gibbon the most famous historian of his day. Today, historians still admire the work’s careful scholarship, powerful narration, vast range, and ironic wit. The book became controversial because it argued that Christianity was a major cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.
Gibbon was born in Surrey, England, on May 8, 1737 (April 27, 1737, according to the calendar then in use). A sickly child, he spent much of his time reading. He enrolled in Oxford University, but hated the 14 months he spent there. In 1753, after he converted to Roman Catholicism, Gibbon was forced to leave Oxford. At that time, only Anglicans were permitted to study at Oxford. Gibbon’s father, a wealthy country gentleman, then sent his disgraced son to Lausanne, Switzerland, to live with a Calvinist minister. While there, Gibbon mastered Latin, Greek, and French, and he laid the foundations of his enormous learning. He was virtually self-educated.
A visit to Rome in 1764 inspired Gibbon to write the Decline and Fall. He settled in London in 1772. He served in the British Parliament but devoted most of his time to scholarship and literature. He spent his last years in Lausanne and died in London on Jan. 16, 1794. In 1796, after Gibbon’s death, his friend Lord Sheffield published Gibbon’s Memoirs of My Life and Miscellaneous Works.
