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Biography of Edward GibbonName: Edward GibbonBirth Date: May 8, 1737 Death Date: January 16, 1794 Place of Birth: Putney, England Nationality: English Gender: Male Occupations: historian, author, member of parliament Edward Gibbon The English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) wrote "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Although superseded in part as history, this work is still read for its clarity, accuracy, and brilliant style. Gibbon's "Autobiography" is a classic of the genre.Edward Gibbon was born May 8, 1737, in Putney. A sickly child, he had tutors and spent two brief intervals at school, but he owed most of his early education to his voracious reading. In April 1752 he was sent to Oxford, where he learned little. In his summer vacation he began his first book, a chronological inquiry called The Age of Sesostris, which he later destroyed. Back at Oxford, he found a new subject of inquiry and in June 1753 told his horrified father that he had become a Roman Catholic.The elder Gibbon immediately sent his son to Lausanne in Protestant Switzerland. M. Daniel Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister, was Edward's tutor and …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…Sheffield compiled and published his friend's memoirs and other miscellaneous works (1796 and 1814). Further Reading J. B. Bury edited the standard edition of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (7 vols., 1896-1902; 3 vols., 1946). The best edition of Gibbon's autobiography was edited by Georges A. Bonnard (1966). Bonnard also edited Gibbon's Journey from Geneva to Rome: His Journal from 20 April to 2 October 1764 (1961). Jane Elizabeth Norton, A Bibliography of the Works of Edward Gibbon (1940), and her edition of Gibbon's Letters (1956) are exemplary. The standard biography is David M. Low, Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 (1937). An excellent short critical biography is George Malcolm Young, Gibbon (1948). Gibbon is praised in Harold L. Bond, The Literary Art of Edward Gibbon (1960). Rewarding critical studies are John B. Black, The Art of History: A Study of Four Great Historians of the Eighteenth Century (1926); Joseph W. Swain, Edward Gibbon the Historian (1966); and David P. Jordan, Gibbon and His Roman Empire (1971). |