By this point, I am much too enamored of Mr. Gibbon to be an impartial judge. I read his work with an almost religious awe. Indeed, Gibbon’s temper is almost that of a sage: not in his kindness or goodness, but in his calm curiosity.

It is a truism of psychology that negative experiences make more

Edward Gibbon's short and entertaining autobiography, telling the story of his life and of how he wrote the Decline and Fall. The two chapters in which Gibbon describes the completion, publication and reception of the Decline and Fall ought to be essential reading for anyone planning a writing caree

What's not to love about a man who writes this well, even when he's not really trying, and gets more upset about intellectual arguments than he does about a faltering love life? Nothing not to love. Gibbon's life wasn't particularly eventful, but this prose would drag me through even a contemporary,

This was a fascinating autobiography of the author of the epic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Can you imagine living in England, France, and Switzerland during the mid- to late-eighteenth century? This is what fascinated me most about the book because it was a time of massive change and the h