Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) was an English historian. He was famous as the author of a great history of imperial Rome during the reign of Trajan. He was born on May 8, 1737, in Putney, Surrey. In his early years, his health was a big concern.
Until he was fourteen, he had delicate health and supplemented his irregular schooling with wide reading. At the age of fifteen, he was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, from which he was expelled for embracing Roman Catholicism. Edward Gibbon spent time at the family home in Buriton in 1747.
Gibbon’s father then placed him under the guidance of a Calvinist minister at Lausanne, by whom he was reconverted. In 1768, he returned to England. He continued his struggle, and in 1761 he was able to publish his first work, an essay on the study of literature, written in French. While visiting Italy in 1764, he conceived the idea of writing the history that became “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”. The first volume was published in 1776, and a complete edition was issued in 1788.
Distinguished by the breadth of knowledge, fine scholarship, and power of organization Therefore, this work is a standard authority on the thirteen centuries of Rome, ending with the fall of Constantinople.
Its greatest defect is the author’s failure to give due credit to the role of Christianity in the progress of civilization. Edward Gibbon also wrote an autobiography, which was published after his death. He was considered the son of the Enlightenment, and his work was praised all over.
In the history of the Middle Ages, he wrote, “I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion.” He died on January 16, 1794, in London, at the age of 56.
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