John Gast

Statut : D.D. Archdeacon of Glandelagh

29.7.1715-25.2.1788

Notes : John Gast, Huguenot Irishman, relative of Montesquieu, Dublin cleric, was the author of the first critical history of Greece, The Rudiments of the Grecian History... in thirteen dialogues (Dublin 1753) and of The History of Greece from the Accession of Alexander of Macedon till its final subjection by the Roman Power (London 1782); the latter is the subject of extensive correspondence with the publisher John Murray, who tried to market it as a rival 'Decline and Fall of Greece', to Gibbon's first two volumes. These works were published together after his death, as A History of Greece, edited by Joseph Stock (2 vols, Dublin 1793). The Hellenistic volume (the first history of the Hellenistic world) was pirated by J.J. Tourneisen (Basel 1797), and translated into German and French. For a biography see Stock's introduction and Oswyn Murray, 'Ireland Invents Greek History' Hermathena 2008.

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