GIBBON (EDMUND)

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vol., IN ORIGINAL BOARDS, 1776-1787-1788

Footnotes

GIBBON'S MASTERPIECE OF ENGLISH LETERATURE - EXTREMELY RARE SET, UNTRIMMED, UNPRESSED AND UNREPAIRED IN THE ORIGINAL BOARDS. The vast majority of copies were rebound in leather, either soon after or more commonly in the nineteenth century, so to find such a set, with full margins and free of any sophistication, is almost without precedent - the survival of three of the fragile paper backstrips is particularly remarkable. The only two entries for sets in original boards listed on ABPC since 1995 are in fact for the same rebacked set, with volume 1 variously described as second state (Christies, 2001, sold for $65,000) and first state (Sotheby's, 2004, £40,000).

The printing history of Decline and Fall led to various combinations of editions and printings being assembled as sets. 500 copies of volume one were initially printed, and a further 500 were ordered before the day of publication, 17 February 1776. The two printings were issued simultaneously and sold out in two weeks. The present set is very unusual in so far as volume one is a first edition, whereas it is much more common, for obvious reasons, to find second editions of the first volume in combination with first editions of the others. Volumes 2 and 3 in the present set were reissued without the other volumes in 1787, and have their own separate entry on ESTC. The portrait frontispiece found in many sets is therefore not called for here as it was issued with the first edition of volume two, along with the 12 pages of contents.

Provenance: Countess of Hopetoun (Elizabeth Hope-Johnstone, née Carnegie), late eighteenth century bookplates; private UK collection.