The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

GIBBON, Edward.

$30,000.00

Item Number: 129094

London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, 1776-1788.

Rare full first edition set, first state of volume one, of Gibbon’s landmark work of historiography with three engraved folding maps by Kitchin of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire and of Constantinople and frontispiece portrait of Gibbon. Quarto, 6 volumes bound in three quarter calf over marbled boards with gilt titles and tooling to the spine. Vol. I: undated engraved portrait frontispiece by Hall after Joshua Reynolds, 12pp. contents, x4 and a4 are cancels, errata leaf; Vol. II: full-sheet folding map of the Eastern Roman Empire by Thomas Kitchin dated 1 January 1781 bound before p.1, half-sheet map of Constantinople and environs by Thomas Kitchin dated 1 January 1781 bound before p.22., G1 and Ll1 are cancels, errata leaf; Vol. III: full-sheet folding map of the Western Roman Empire by Thomas Kitchin dated 1 January 1781 before p.1, p.177 correctly numbered, p.179 line 18 reading “Honorious,” errata leaf; Vol. IV: H3 and L2 are cancels; Vol. VI: errata for volumes IV-VI on 4Uv. First edition, first state of Vol. I with cancels x4 and a4 (so signed) and with the balance of the errata uncorrected. While the first volume was on the press, Strahan decided to increase the print run from 500 to 1000 copies; the second 500 or so copies, constituting the second state, have the errata corrected through p.183 (here uncorrected). The portrait frontispiece and 12pp. of contents, issued with volume II, are bound in to volume I. From the library of Steve and Peggy Fossett with their estate bookplate to each pastedown. James Stephen “Steve” Fossett with his bookplate to the pastedown of each volume. American businessman and record-setting aviator Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in 2002 in his 10-story high balloon Spirit of Freedom. He completed the 2002 trip in 13 days, 8 hours, and 33 minutes and set records for both the Longest Distance Flown Solo in a Balloon and Fastest Balloon Flight Around the World. Fossett was also one of sailing’s most prolific distance record holders set the Absolute World Speed Record for airships with a Zeppelin NT in 2004. He received numerous awards and honors throughout his career including aviation’s highest award, the Gold Medal of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), which he was awarded in 2002. Fossett disappeared on September 3, 2007 while flying a light aircraft over the Great Basin Desert, between Nevada and California. A rare and desirable full first edition set of Gibbon’s masterpiece with noted provenance.

"This masterpiece of historical penetration and literary style has remained one of the ageless historical works Gibbon brought a width of vision and a critical mastery of the available sources which have not been equalled to this day; and the result was clothed in inimitable prose" (PMM 222). "For 22 years Gibbon was a prodigy of steady and arduous application. His investigations extended over almost the whole range of intellectual activity for nearly 1500 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, 146-7).