Note 177 — Front matter (continued 4)

It was not without difficulty that Gibbon could obtain a publisher for his famous History. After it had been declined by several houses, it was finally undertaken by Thomas Cadell, "on easy terms," as the author expresses it. It was thought best to publish only five hundred copies at first; this edition being soon exhausted, edition after edition followed in rapid succession, until, as Gibbon says, "my book was on every table and on almost every toilet."