Gibbon's Library was wantonly dispersed

Cataloged on Playing Cards

Yes, the cover above is a version of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire available on Amazon. It’s in the public domain, so I guess anything goes. James Morrison explains the cover.¹

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,² possessed a library of thousands of volumes fundamental to his historical work.³ In 1777 Gibbon had a catalog of his library prepared which is in the British Library. Another catalog of his library exists on the verso of playing cards. (This catalogue is also at the British Library). Geoffrey Keynes’s catalog of Gibbon’s library details the complex story of the fate of Gibbon’s books.⁴

Gibbon made no provision for the preservation of his library in his will; instead, he instructed his executors to sell it and eventually it was “wantonly dispersed.”⁵

Edward Gibbon by Joshua Reynolds

For his reconstruction of the library, Keynes used the two catalogs (the 1777 one and the playing cards), and a number of sale catalogs. These included Schöll’s catalogs, 1832 and 1833, Evans’s 1833 auction catalog, the Jarvis Library auction catalog of 1851, the Sotheby’s sale catalog of 1934, and the Howe catalog of 1936.⁶

Gibbon’s library continues to attract our interest because Gibbon himself is one of the more engaging figures of the 18th century. His history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire still attracts readers even 250 years after its first publication. This is largely, I believe, due to the personality of the writer and his command of English prose. And this attraction continues to move readers’ interest from the volumes of the history to the writer himself, and to the books in his library. ⁷

For more on Gibbon’s library see “Gibbon’s Mind and Libraries.” ⁸

1. Morrison, James (2020). The Caustic Cover Critic: One Man’s Ranting About Book Design. Oh, good people, do I have a treat for you: the confused covers of 'Sheba Blake Publishing' and his article, “Cover story: The curious case of a shared database: James Morrison exposes the somewhat rather narrow range of book cover design. Newsroom. July 21, 2019.

2. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol. I, 1776; vols. II, III, 1781; vols. IV, V, VI, 1788–1789). all London: Strahan & Cadell.

3. Virr, Richard. 2018. “Revisiting the Library of Edward Gibbon.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada / Cahiers de La Societe Bibliographique Du Canada 56 (1/2): 53–74.

4. Keynes, Geoffrey. Library of Edward Gibbon: A Catalogue. University Virginia P, 1980.

5. Thompson, James Westfall. 1937. “Library of Gibbon the Historian.” Library Quarterly 7 (July): 343–53.

6. Ibid., Virr.

7. Ibid.

8. Mankin, Robert. 2018. “Gibbon’s Mind and Libraries.” In The Cambridge Companion to Edward Gibbon, edited by Karen O’Brien and Brian Young, 184–202. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University.