On the death of Edward Gibbon (1737-94), his unpublished papers were left to his friend John Baker Holroyd, first earl of Sheffield, who published them in two volumes in 1796. Gibbon had written six manuscript accounts of his own life, and, according to Sheffield, had always intended to publish his autobiography in his lifetime. The memoir as edited by Sheffield begins with Gibbon's family history, and taking in his education, travels, and career as a historian, finishes with his anxiety over the future of Europe in 1788. Sheffield then continues the story until Gibbon's death through his…mehr
On the death of Edward Gibbon (1737-94), his unpublished papers were left to his friend John Baker Holroyd, first earl of Sheffield, who published them in two volumes in 1796. Gibbon had written six manuscript accounts of his own life, and, according to Sheffield, had always intended to publish his autobiography in his lifetime. The memoir as edited by Sheffield begins with Gibbon's family history, and taking in his education, travels, and career as a historian, finishes with his anxiety over the future of Europe in 1788. Sheffield then continues the story until Gibbon's death through his correspondence, providing a linking narrative, and this, together with 210 other letters to and from Gibbon, takes up Volume 1. His great work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is also reissued (in the 1896-1900 edition by J. B. Bury) in the Cambridge Library Collection.
Edward Gibbon was a member of the English parliament, a historian, and a writer. On May 8, 1737, he was born, and on January 16, 1794, he died. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, came out in six parts between 1776 and 1788. It is known for the quality and irony of its prose, the way it uses first-hand sources, and the way it criticizes organized religion in a polemical way. After getting sick in 1752, Gibbon went to Bath to get better. When he was 15, his father sent him to Oxford to study as a gentleman commoner at Magdalen College. But he didn't fit in well at college, and he later said that the 14 months he spent there were the "most useless and unprofitable" of his life. He lived in Lausanne for five years and read works by Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke, Pierre Bayle, and Blaise Pascal. He also traveled around Switzerland to study the constitutions of its cantons.
Inhaltsangabe
Preface The author's introduction Anecdotes of the author's life Appendix of 210 letters to and from Edward Gibbon.
