SOURCE: Mandel, Barrett John. “The Problem of Narration in Edward Gibbon's Autobiography.” Studies in Philology 67, no. 4 (1970): 550-64.

In the following essay, Mandel argues that a comparison of the six drafts of Gibbon's autobiography shows that the author of the Decline and Fall was never able to find a narrative voice that satisfied his desire to show his personal development as a historian.

Edward Gibbon managed to complete his massive history of the Roman empire. But when he turned his attention to the history of his own life and attempted to produce an autobiography, he found the challenge too great. Writing to Sheffield in 1793, after having put his pen down on six separate drafts of his autobiography, Gibbon laments, “And now approach, and let me drop into your most private ear a literary secret. Of the Memoirs little has been done, and with that little I am not satisfied...