1960, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon

Book Description: Harcourt, Brace & Comany, New York, 1960, Book Club Edition.(BCE/BOMC). Hard Cover, burgandy cloth boards, the author's initials blind-stamped to the front board, gold gilt on spine. Book Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. 5.75" x 8.75" Tall, 2.25" thick. 924 pp, page's are bright and clean, binding is tight, front and back insides covers have Roman maps. It was in Rome in 1764, Gibbon records, "on the fifteenth of October in the gloom of evening, as I sat musing on the Capitol . that I conceived the first thought of my history." But it was many years before he "grappled with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire." A One Volume Abridgement by D.M.Low.

"Gibbon divided his volumes equally between the three centuries from Marcus Aurelus to the fall of the West, and the thousand years that followed to the capture of Constantinople.[Low's] supremely skillful abridgment will introduce that masterpiece to numerous readers who, intimidated by its great length, have never discovered its perennial fascination."

"Edward Gibbon (April 27, 1737 - January 16, 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The Decline and Fall is known principally for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open denigration of organised religion, though the extent of this is disputed by some critics." - Wikipedia.