THE FIELD OF THIS ENQUIRY

This volume, the fifth in its sequence, is focused initially on the last two chapters (numbers 15 and 16) of the first volume of the Decline and Fall, published by William Strahan for Edward Gibbon in February and August of 1776; subsequently on the controversy they occasioned during the following five years; finally on a selected chapter (number 21) of the second volume, published in 1781. Within this time-frame and frame of reference, the history Gibbon was studying and the historiography in which he was engaged underwent changes so profound that the Decline and Fall may be said to have taken on a new character; and as the reception of his work began in the early months of 1776 and has continued ever since, the Decline and Fall began to have a history, shaped by others besides its author and not necessarily that he intended for it. Questions of intention and performance, authorship and readership, come to demand attention; and the Decline and Fall begins to emerge from the contexts of eighteenth-century historiography, necessary to the understanding of what Gibbon was doing, to situate itself or be situated in others, necessary to the understanding of what he was taken to have done. The author ceases to be the sole master of his work, even while his mastery over its composition may have been increasing.