Gibbon and the 'Watchmen of the Holy City'

The subject of this book is the story of the conflict between Gibbon and those he mockingly dubbed the "Watchmen of the Holy City," and it explores the ramifications of an elusive aspect of authorship. By considering the sequence of interactions between the historian and his readership, Womersley makes possible a more intimate understanding of what might be called Gibbon's experience of himself. At the same time he deepens our knowledge of the conditions of English authorship during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

David Womersley is a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature, Jesus College, Oxford.

Abbreviations

xi

Note on References

xii

Introduction

1

(12)

PART I. THE HISTORIAN AND HIS REPUTATION 1776-1788

Revision and Religion

13

(30)

Forging a Polemical Style: Gibbon's Vindication and Literary Warfare, 1694-1779

43

(57)

`Too deeply into the mud of the Arian Controversy': Gibbon and the Early Church Fathers

100

(47)

`Enthusiasm and Imposture': Gibbon and Mahomet

147

(28)

PART II. AFTER THE DECLINE AND FALL

Gibbon's Unfinished History

175

(32)

The `Memoirs': Autobiography in Time of Revolution

207

(34)

`As common as any the most vulgar thing to sense': Three Versions of the Death of a Father

241

(16)

`Fourteen months, the most barren and unprofitable of my whole life': Five Versions of Residence in Oxford

257

(78)

PART III. MISCELLANEOUS WORKS

The Making of Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works

335

(29)

Conclusion

364

(64)

Appendices

1. The Two Drafts of Sheffield's Unpublished Note on Chapters Fifteen and Sixteen

369

(3)

2. Gibbon's `Memoirs of my Life': Drafts, Correspondence, and Context

372

(6)

3. John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield (1735-1821): A Bibliography

378

(2)

4. The Three Versions of the Death of Edward Gibbon Senior

380

(3)

5. Residence in Oxford and Conversion to Catholicism: MSS B, C, D, and E

383

(14)

6. Residence in Oxford and Conversion to Catholicism: MS F and MW 1796

397

(25)

7. Editing Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works: Text and Contexts

422

(6)

Bibliography

428

(18)

Index

446

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Gibbon and the 'Watchmen of the Holy City' The Historian and his Reputation, 1776-1815

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials