ABSTRACT
Edward Gibbon, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, was born on 8 May 1737 (N.S.), the first and only surviving child of parents deeply engrossed in a “love tale at … Putney” (Gibbon [1966], 19). His birth came just too late to persuade a stern grandfather to forgive the young lovers for a marriage he had disapproved of and to make a will more favorable to his only son, Gibbon’s father. The grandfather (an ex-director of the notorious South Sea Company who remained well-to-do despite the punitive measures taken against the directors when the “bubble” burst) had died in December 1736, and the shadow of his disapproval and of his austere brand of Anglicanism hung over Gibbon’s childhood. Gibbon was often desperately ill as an infant and had only brief intervals of health as a boy. His mother, absorbed in her husband and numerous pregnancies (followed within days or months by the deaths of the infants), had little time for him. Her place was filled by one of “the world’s perfect aunts” (Low, 24), her sister Catherine Porten, “the true mother of my mind as well as of my health,” Gibbon called her gratefully (Gibbon [1966], 36). She instilled in him a delight in reading, especially in tales of life exotic in time or place. Early favorites were the Arabian Nights and Pope’s Homer.
