Folio Archives 272: Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon 1995

The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon 8 volume set 1995

Written between 1776 and 1788, Gibbon’s grand opus was the definitive history of the latter part of the Roman Empire for over a century, and is still regarded as a great work of scholarship. The Folio Society eight volume edition was published as separate volumes between 1983 and 1990, then rebound and presented as a combined eight volume set in two slipcases in 1995.

The most common complaint about the content of the FS edition is that it lacks the footnotes that academic editions contain, but otherwise it is a fascinating set to dip into from time to time and read a chapter or two.

The original single volume editions were bound in dark red-brown buckram decorated in gold and had pale yellow-brown slipcases. Each volume in the 1995 complete set is bound in cream vegetable parchment decorated in the same gold pattern as the original set on the covers, and with red and blue title labels on the spine. They all have cream endleaves with a map printed in dark blue. They are housed in two red four-volume slipcases front titled and decorated in gold and measuring 26.4x17cm.

The eight volumes are:-
- 1983 The Turn of the Tide, edited and introduced by Betty Radice. 14 leaves of monochrome plates reproducing photographs of surviving Roman antiquities and etchings. 322 pages
- 1984 Constantine and the Roman Empire edited and introduced by Betty Radice. 10 leaves of plates. 322 pages.
- 1985 The Revival and Collapse of Paganism edited and introduced by Betty Radice. 15 leaves of plates. 370 pages.
- 1986 The End of the Western Empire edited and introduced by Betty Radice. 15 leaves of plates. 394 pages.
- 1987 Justinian and the Roman Law edited and introduced by Felipe Fernández-Armesto. 15 leaves of plates. 394 pages.
- 1988 Mohammed and the Rise of the Arabs edited and introduced by Felipé Ferández-Armesto. 16 B&W illustrations. 377 pages.
- 1989 The Normans in Italy and the Crusades edited and introduced by Felipe Fernández-Armesto. 18 leaves of plates. 444 pages.
- 1990 The Fall of Constantinople and the Papacy in Rome edited and introduced by Felipe Fernández-Armesto. 16 leaves of plates. 366 pages.

In 1991 Edward Gibbon's Atlas of the World with 28 monochrome reproductions of antique maps known to have been available to Gibbon and 23 specially prepared for this work to illustrate his "Decline and Fall" was published to accompany the other eight volumes. This has been previously reviewed in the Folio Archives series here.

All the 1995 edition volumes have been identically bound, so the first volume will be photographed in detail as an example of the full set.



























































Original single volume set from 1983-199o
Images from the internet.





An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.

>1 wcarter: Thanks for another one Warwick! I would note that the missing footnotes that many Devotees justly complain about aren't supplementary 'academic' footnotes, they're Gibbons' own footnotes, in many cases as witty and drole as they are informative. I'm sure there are also 'academic' editions with yet further footnotes/endnotes by other experts, but the lack of these aren't I think what troubles most FSDers.

>1 wcarter:
>2 cronshaw:

I was always a bit puzzled about this. I have an 18th century unabridged edition and I used to have the Folio Society edition....for the most part the missing footnotes are references/quotations in Greek/Latin...so in my very personal reading experience I didn't really feel like I was missing much (don't read Greek...two years of high school Latin lol). It was the 18th century, so I suppose Gibbon might have said some additional naughty things in Latin that would have been indiscreet in English; I haven't looked into it. A lot of the comments I've seen in other threads make it seem like the FS edition has no footnotes at all...it still has quite a few.

>3 MobyRichard: I have the excellent Everyman's Library edition which has all Gibbon's footnotes. There are some scattered quotes in Latin and Greek, but overall they constitute a tiny proportion of the text of the footnotes, the substantial bulk of which is in English and much of which was regrettably cut by Folio in their edition.

Another option is the 6-volume, leather bound Franklin Library edition from the Great Books of the Western World set. It contains all of Gibbon’s footnotes together with “all 135 Piranesi etchings of the Vedute di Roma.”

>4 cronshaw:

Right....but like I said people's comments (in multiple threads, not just this one) make it seems like the FS edition has little to none of Gibbon's footnotes. However much they cut, we should make it clear that the FS edition still retains a LOT of footnotes, including some English translations from Greek and Latin. It's legitimate to be unhappy about cuts, but no need to exaggerate.

I take the basic position that cutting ANY footnotes out is unacceptable. They wouldn't cut out page 84 from Oliver Twist, so why take out Gibbon's footnotes? It's simply staggering that anyone would think it was a good idea to spend time and money on giving people less. I'm still appalled by the seemingly deliberate ruining of what should have been a landmark edition.

Incidentally, there is also Gibbon's own sortabiography that's bound in series, albeit in a different colour (green), to the original editions.

>7 InVitrio:

I mean...without abridgements a huge number of works would never, ever get reprinted. There's several world classics I would never have been able to afford without abridgements, b/c nobody wants to go bankrupt reprinting them. Gibbon is a rare case, where a publisher would be willing to print an 8 volume fine edition at all and then give it away as part of a membership offer to people who were probably going to buy from Folio anyways. Take a look at current prices for 2 volume FS books (non-LE, offset printed)...then imagine how expensive printing an unabridged 8+ volume set would be? Who do you think would be willing and able to buy that?

You're also ignoring the fact that authors sometimes abridge their own works, so even the creators see a need for it sometimes.

>8 MobyRichard: imagine how expensive printing an unabridged 8+ volume set would be? Who do you think would be willing and able to buy that?

Anyone who buys the Penguin or Everyman editions?