Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Įdward Gibbon ( – 16 January 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament.

With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. He then turns his gaze to events in the East, where even the achievements of the Byzantine emperor Justinian and the campaigns of the brilliant military leader Belisarius could not conceal the fundamental weaknesses of their empire.įor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. Here, in volumes three and four, Gibbon vividly recounts the waves of barbarian invaders under commanders such as Alaric and Attila, who overran and eventually destroyed the West. Its subject is the fate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteen centuries - its rulers, wars and society, and the events that led to its disastrous collapse. Contemporary calf (rebacked and recornered).Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent and ambitious narratives in European literature. Engraved portrait frontispiece after Joshua Reynolds, 3 folding engraved maps (some staining and toning at ends of each folume, one map with closed tear at fold, occasional spots, a little offsetting to title from portrait). Half-titles, errata leaves in first three vols as issued, errors corrected in vol. See Iggy Pop, 'Caesar Lives,' in Classics Ireland (1995). Grolier English 58 PMM 222 Rothschild 942. In a review in Classics Ireland, Iggy Pop describes his captivation with 'the clash of beliefs, personalities and values played out on antiquity's stage by crowds of the vulgar, led by huge archetypal characters ' his album American Caesar was inspired by the book. Strahan's instincts proved correct, and the entire first thousand copies sold out in a fortnight. Reading the auspices favorably, Strahan predicted the popularity of the work and doubled the print run from 500 to 1000 copies during the publication process, entailing the resetting of some sheets. Gibbon's sweeping six-volume history covers the years 98 to 1590, and its surprisingly enduring popularity has resulted in Gibbon's Enlightenment-era nostalgia for lost civilization and sometimes extreme biases (against Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism the Middle Ages the Byzantine Empire, etc.) taking hold of the public imagination into the present day.

Cadell, 1776-1788.įirst edition of a 'masterpiece of historical penetration and literary style' (PMM). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

The history of the decline and fall