The autobiography and correspondence of Edward Gibbon, the historian.

by Edward Gibbon

Publisher:

Alex. Murray

, 1869

Overview

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Product Details

• Title: The autobiography and correspondence of Edward Gibbon, the historian.
• Author: Edward Gibbon
• Publisher: Alex. Murray
• Print Publication Date: 1869
• Logos Release Date: 2014
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Facsimile
• Subject: Historians › England--Biography
• Resource ID: LLS:FAC1739
• Resource Type: Media
• Metadata Last Updated: 2023-09-19T17:58:14Z

About Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon was born at Putney, Surrey. While a student at Westminster, he read history voraciously, but in 1749 left because of poor health. After a series of indifferent tutors, he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1752. He was soon expelled for espousing Roman Catholicism. (He later became cynical of Christian beliefs.) Sent to study under a Calvinist minister in Lausanne (Switzerland), he received excellent instruction, reading Latin classics, philosophers Locke and Grotius, and French writers Montesquieu and Pascal.

In 1764 he visited Rome, where the ancient ruins inspired him to write a history of antiquity. The seven–volume Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published, 1776–1788), based on intensive research of original sources, is a monumental study of the late Roman Empire and early church history. Gibbon concluded that the rapid spread of Christianity was primarily due to the strict morality, discipline, and courageous martyrdom of the early church members. Gibbon, however, ridiculed the Christians’ belief in the supernatural and derided medieval Christianity as anti–intellectual.