The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in Eight Volumes: The Turn of the Tide; Constantine and the Christian Empire; The Revival and Collapse of Paganism; The End of the Western Empire; Justinian and the Roman Law; Mohammed and the Rise…

Complete in eight hardcover volumes. Edited with introduction by Betty Radice. Illustrations from etchings by Gian Battista Piranesi throughout text. Brown cloth, gilt titles and rules, maps on endpapers. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was written by English historian Edward Gibbon and published in six volumes. Volume I was published in 1776, and went through six printings. Volumes II and III were published in 1781; volumes IV, V, VI in 1788 - 89. The original volumes were published in quarto sections, a common publishing practice of the time. It stands as a major literary achievement of the 18th century because it was adopted as a model for the methodologies of modern historians. This led to Gibbon being called the first modern historian of Ancient Rome.