Bio: (1737-94) He was the son of an English country gentleman and was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford; and, as Chamber's points out, "he derived little benefit from either." After schooling in Lausanne, Switzerland (during which time he was to fall in love with the parson's daughter, and to which his father put a quick end) the young Gibbon returned to London where he took up residence in his father's household and found the leisure for scholarly study and bookish solitude.

Gibbon's cynicism, in regards to history, viz., "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind" added "a spice to the work which relates it to literature rather than history. His accuracy in the use of his sources has not been questioned." (Chamber's.) Gibbon's major work, of course was his multi-volumed The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire written through the years 1776 to 1787, and is the standard history on the Roman civilization. Gibbon was to write an autobiography.