1804 -1805 DECLINE AND FALL OF ROMAN EMPIRE-LEATHER SET

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

By Edward Gibbon, Esq.

In Eight Volumes.  (Volumes 2-8 included in this offering with Volume 1 missing). These 7 volumes begin with the complications after the abdication of Diocletian in 305 A.D and end with the restoration of the City of Rome in 1420. Volume 8 has the General Index for all 8 volumes and concludes with the Memoirs of Edward Gibbon.

Published by William Y. Birch & Abraham Small, No 37 South Second Street, Philadelphia 1804-1805

Printed by Robert Carr. 

Bound in rich brown calf leather with seven gilt embossed bands on the spine.  Compartment 2 houses a red leather title band with gilt titling and the volume number is in the fourth compartment.  The leather on the covers and spines remains suppple, there is some superficial cracking to the spine leather, there are no splits and the hinges are strong the the bindings tight.  There are bumps to corners and spines, some scuffing to covers and edges.

Each volume contains ~400 pages printed on linen papers which have aged to ivory.  There is foxing, primarily to the endpapers, though some is scattered throughout the volumes. They each have a faded owner's signature inside the front cover. A breif description of each volume is below:

Volume 2: 435 pages, page 58 has 1/3 of the page missing with a handwritten pencilled explanation "This book was mutilated by P.D. McConnell." There is a fold out map adjacent to page 220 titled "The Parts of Europe and Asia adjacent to Constantinople" the map is foxed and there is a tear along one of the folds about halfway up the page.

Volume 3: 480 pages, no illustrations

Volume 4: 496 pages,there is a small gouge in the leather on the back cover about 1 inch long, also a second owner's signature on the first endpaper, 4 pages are loose and their edges ruffled, though they are still bound in at the top.

Volume 5: 481 pages

Volume 6: 468 pages

Volume 7:488 pages, tucked in the back is a small section aparently torn from another small book "To William Horsley., Mus. Bac. Oxon. This Book is, with Permission, Inscribed by the Author" reads the first page which is followed by the preface, Table of Contents and first two pages of a music book.   

Volume 8: 283 pages, followed by a General Index and a  130 page section of Memoirs of Mr Gibbon, and  2 pages listing other book offerings