Descrizione

6 volumes. A new edition, to which is added a complete index of the whole work. With an engraved portrait frontispiece in volume one, with tissue guard. 8vo, in period bindings of three-quarter polished brown calf over marbled paper covered boards, the spines very handsomely gilt tooled with a lattice in two compartments, gilt lettering in two others, and fine gilt tooling around a central gilt flower device in one other, these all separated by delicately gilt stippled raised bands, marbled endpapers and page edges. A nicely preserved set, the text completely free of any foxing, stains, or spotting, looking largely unused, the bindings are firm and solid with strong hinges, the calf with a little rubbing and general wear but with bright gilt.

Edizione: a very handsome set in contemporary bindings of the greatest historical work ever undertaken. the text is largely that of john murray's 1846 edition, and embodies the important notes of rev. milman.<br> it was in italy while "musing amid the ruins of the capital" that gibbon formed the plan of his history. originally published in six volumes from 1776 to 1788, gibbon's fine scholarship has remained for the most part unchallenged. the work's numerous reprintings throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are evidence of its popularity and historical accuracy.<br> "for twenty-two years gibbon was a prodigy of steady and arduous application. his investigations extended over almost the whole range of intellectual activity for nearly fifteen-hundred years. and so thorough were his methods that the laborious investigations of german scholarship, the keen criticisms of theological zeal, and the steady researches of (two) centuries have brought to light very few important errors in the results of his labors. but it is not merely the learning of his work, learned as it is, that gives it character as a history. it is also that ingenious skill by which the vast erudition, the boundless range, the infinite variety, and the gorgeous magnificence of the details are all wrought together in a symmetrical whole. it is still entitled to be esteemed as the greatest historical work ever written" (adams, manual of historical literature, pp. 146-147).<br> the success of the work was immediate. "i am at a loss," gibbon wrote, "how to describe the success of the work without betraying the vanity of the writer. the first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand, and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pyrates of dublin. my book was on every table, and almost on every toilette." publication of this grand work placed gibbon at the "very head of the literary tribe" in europe, according to adam smith.