Edward Gibbon (8 May 1737 – 16 January 1794) was an English essayist, historian, and politician. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is renowned for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organized religion.

Gibbon returned to England in June 1765. His father died in 1770, leaving him an estate that was by no means in good condition, but still sufficient for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7 Bentinck Street, independent of financial concerns. By February 1773, he was writing his magnum opus in earnest, albeit with occasional self-imposed distractions.