Worth the effort. ( )

A more succinct and direct testimony of human nature can not be found in any written record. My most lasting impression is one of brevity. No other work attempts to cover such a range of people, time and events. Any one chapter in the work could have been a very interesting and worthwhile book in itself. I also found myself deciphering the latin and greek footnotes with increasing pleasure.
My favorite testimony is that of Isaac Asimov, who, after twice reading Gibbon, envisioned a similar but 'galactic' story that would become the Foundation series. ( )

Edward Gibbon

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

First published in six volumes in 1776 (vol. 1), 1781 (vols. 2 & 3) and 1788 (vols. 4, 5 & 6).

Everyman's Library, Hardback, Volumes 1-6, 1993. [complete].
With Introduction by H. Trevor-Roper (1993) and Notes by Oliver Smeaton (1910).

Penguin Classics, Paperback, Volumes 1-3, 1995. [complete].
Edited and with Introduction by David Womersley.

Wordsworth Classics, Paperback, 1998.
Abridged edition in one volume [28 out of 71 chapters].
Introduction by Antony Lentin and Brian Norman.

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I may very well start with a confession: not only have I not read the whole of Gibbon's magisterial work but I have read actually only several chapters here and there. Yet I dare to give this work the maximum five stars and now I will try to explain why I am doing so. Of course, you are at perfect liberty to raise the blue or the red flag when you finish reading this 'review'.

It is rather strange if you come to think about it. I am one of the last persons - if not the last one indeed - who should like a style like Gibbon's; it is an epitome of pompous rhetoric and I tend to like simple writing which says everything there is to say as straightforward and as succinct as possible. And yet, I happen to love Gibbon's style very much and I find immense pleasure in reading most of his three or four lines long sentences few times; not because I have problems with understanding them but because their sound and rhythm are almost as beautiful as a great musical composition. Gibbon's ability to balance sentence is something truly astonishing and if his meaning is sometimes obscure this is largely if not entirely due to the fact that Decline and Fall was written more than 200 years ago and the English language did change a great deal since then. A good many words and phrases have changed their meanings, sometimes rather radically. But if it is read slowly and carefully, Gibbon is not at all hard to be understood. Moreover, the pleasure of reading him is much greater and far more durable.

And here comes the greatest danger. This caveat is quite true for such rich and florid styles of writing in general. As Somerset Maugham brilliantly wrote is his book The Summing up (probably his greatest masterpiece but that's quite another story) such beautiful and lush language falls on the ear like music; the effect is sensual rather than intellectual and can easily lead you in realms of pleasure where you do not care very much about the meaning.

The most remarkable thing about Gibbon's Decline and Fall, in my humble opinion that pretends to be nothing else but personal, is that this terrible danger is actually missing. Despite the immense richness and complexity of his language, there is hardly a sentence without meaning. Indeed, in the chapters I have read there was not even a single such sentence and I am pretty this will not change much if at all with the reading of the other chapters. What is more, and more important indeed, not only is Gibbon's prose thoughtful and meaningful but it is really astonishing how many more hidden meanings can be found on re-reading certain passages. Not only is there not even one superfluous sentence, but you would be put to a hard trial should you even try to find one unnecessary word which does not add something special to the whole sentence.

I do not know how reliable Gibbon is in terms of historical accuracy but I guess he is fine since he worked with a huge range of ancient sources. Some details might have changed since his time due to some advance of archaeological science but the basic picture, I assume, is pretty much the same now as it was two centuries ago. After all, more or less all ancient sources, on which our present day knowledge about the antiquity is mainly based today, were known to Gibbon and he obviously studied them conscientiously. So Gibbon can be read not only for a great pleasure but also with a good deal of benefit in terms of both historical knowledge and human nature. Are they not the very same thing actually?

Perhaps Gibbon could have said all this in half the space he used. But all the grandeur (which suits the subject admirably), and quite probably a great many nuances in the meaning, would have been lost completely and reading Decline and Fall today would have been a rather tedious business (should the work have survived the test of time at all, of course). By the way, despite his grand style, quite often Gibbon is pretty much to the point and his justly legendary sarcasm, not least in his famous footnotes, could hardly fail to amuse and entertain the reader but also to give him a very solid ground for reflection on various matters of great importance, Christianity being the most famous example perhaps. Personally, I am looking very much forward to reading more chapters of this unique masterpiece of historical study. It is an unforgettable experience.

A final note concerning some editions because my rating in this case - and this is something of an exception - largely depends on them. (Decline and Fall is actually beyond any such things as ratings!) The Wordsworth Classics abridged edition was my starting point and it served its purpose very well. Hence, I give it five stars all right. It reprints only 28 of 71 chapters but they, together with the brief but perfectly written preface, were quite enough to make a Gibbon's fan out of me and stimulate me to buy a complete edition of the work as soon as possible. So far I have had experience with two such editions - Penguin's in three volumes and Everyman's Library's in six volumes. I must say I rather prefer the latter which is printed in a font size large enough to be read comfortably and the separate volumes are of the right size - and hardcover - for that purpose, too. In addition, it contains excellent introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper and all archaisms from Gibbon's time have been modernized. Some people object to such, as they call it, sacrilegious treatment of a classic literature, but I think it makes the reading easier and more pleasant without at the same time having any harmful consequences for the matter or the manner as every comparison with the un-modernized text will show. Moreover, this edition contains a number of notes correcting Gibbon's historical inaccuracies which are extremely helpful despite being one century old (they were written by Oliver Smeaton for the first Everyman's Library edition from 1910 if I am not mistaken). The original text of Decline and Fall, the closest one to what Gibbon actually wrote, appears in the Penguin Classics' edition and has been painstakingly restored by David Womersley who is also author of a spectacular introduction that follows the composition of the work in great detail and in the context of Gibbon's life and time. But Penguin's edition (as well as Wordsworth abridged one, for that matter) is printed in a rather smaller font size than Everyman library's one, and combining two original volumes into one makes for a huge book of more than 1000 pages which is not the most convenient one to read, especially in paperback edition. This is the only reason for which I would give Penguin's edition four and a half star rating and, needless to add, this has nothing to do with Gibbon's work. ( )

The definitive history of the Roman Empire that took a lifetime to write and which takes only half a lifetime to read ( )