The Early Life of Edward Gibbon

FAIN: FA-12146-78

Patricia B. Craddock
Boston University (Gainesville, FL 32611-0001)

To write the first volume of a new biography of Edward Gibbon, author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This volume will deal with the years 1737-72 and will end when he begins writing the Decline and Fall. Particular attention will be given to: (1) the series of painful and destructive familial experiences in infancy and childhood that led to the apparent, but illusory, absence of strong feeling in his temperament as an adult, (2) the self-education, as a scholar, historian and mediator of the quarrel between the philosophes and the erudits, which is recoverable from his forgotten and neglected apprentice works, and (3) the process and difficulties of his choice between the roles of scholar and country gentleman.