Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon (April 27, 1737 (O.S.) (May 8, 1737 (N.S.)) - January 16, 1794) was arguably the most influential historian since the time of Tacitus. His magnum opus, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, first published in 1776, is a groundbreaking work whose influence endures to this day.

Works by Gibbon

• Essai sur l?étude de la littérature (1761).
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volume I, 1776; Volumes II and III, 1781; Volumes IV, V, and VI, 1788).
• A vindication of some passages in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (1779).
• Mémoire justificatif pour servir de réponse à l?exposé, &c de la cour de France (1779).
• Memoirs of My Life (1796, at the beginning of the posthumous Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esq. published two years after the author's death by his friend and literary executor John Holroyd, first Earl of Sheffield); cf. Georges A. Bonnard's critical edition (1966).