Gibbon's history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (3rd ed)

'It was at Rome on the 15th October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started in my mind.' This famous description by Gibbon of the work that was to occupy him for over twenty years is as well-known as the first few lines of the book itself.

Few books of scholarship have held up so well to public attention over the last two hundred years.

At a time when the materials for this history were scant, a mind as great as Gibbon's was able to absorb everything known on the subject and dominate it with his historical erudition and inimitable literary style.

A hundred years on with mushrooming scholarship and information this task would have been impossible.

In spite of inevitable errors, and an untenable main thesis that the fall of Rome was due mainly to the victory of Christianity, Decline and Fall continues to be cherished and read by scholars and laymen.

The first volume, highly acclaimed on publication, was quickly reprinted in spite of an ambitious first print-run of 1000 copies. Careless proofreading meant numerous errors had to be rectified in later editions. it was not until the third edition, reprinted here, that the layout was improved and the footnotes appeared at the foot of each page and chapter numbers were placed in the margins.

This conforms with the appearance of all the subsequent luxurious quarto volumes.

With the textual revisions, this makes the third edition the first satisfactory scholarly edition and the one referred to most academically.