Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published between 1776 and 1788, is the undisputed masterpiece of English historical writing which can only perish with the language itself. With style, learning and wit, Gibbon takes the reader through the history of Europe from time after Marcus Aurelius, roughly 180 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 - an enthralling account by 'the greatest of the historians of the Enlightenment'.