First Editions of Rousseau`s Contract Social and Emile ROUSSEAU

First Editions of Rousseau's Contract Social and Emile
ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Du Contract Social; [half-title] Principes du Droit Politique.
Marc Michel Rey, 1762.
[together with:] Émile, ou de l'Éducation. The Hague, Jean Néaulme [i.e. Paris, NicolasBonaventure Duchesne], 1762.
[together with:] Oeuvres de Rousseau de Geneve. Nouvelle Edition revue, corrigée, &
augmentée de plusieurs morceaux qui n'avoient point encore paru. Tome I [- Tome V].
Neuchatel, 1764.
[together with:] Esprit, Maximes, et Principes de M. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, de Genéve.
Neuchatel, Libraires Associés, 1764.
[together with:] Lettres écrites de la Montagne. Premiere Partie. [- Seconde Partie].
Amsterdam, Marc Michel Rey, 1764. Marc Michel Rey, 1762. 1762
£14,000
Seventeen volumes, vol XV 'Contract Social', 8vo, pp. [iv], viii, 323, [1] advertisement, engraved
title vignette with the figure of Liberty seated; vols VI - IX Emile, 8vo, pp. [2], viii, [2] explication
des figures, 466, [4] privilege, [1] errata, [1] blank, with engraved frontispiece and one plate bound
after 'livre I'; engraved frontispiece, [iv], 407; engraved frontispiece, pp. [iv], 384, some spotting
& dampstaining in last section; engraved frontispiece, pp. [iv], 455, some spotting to last two
pages, else fine; Vol I - V, engraved frontispiece, pp. [iv], vi, 5-421; engraved frontispiece, pp. [ii],
447; engraved frontispiece, pp. [ii], xlvii, [48]-384; engraved frontispiece, pp. [iv], xvii, [18]-406,
[1] contents, [1] blank - with half title; engraved frontispiece, pp. [iv], 288, cxliii, [1] errata; Vol X
- XIII: La Nouvelle Heloise, first Paris edition, engraved frontispiece, pp. [iv], 408, with two
engraved plates; [iv], 405 with plates 3-6; [iv], 432, with plates 7-9; [iv] 382, with plates 10-12;
Vol. XIV Esprit, Maximes, et Principes de J.J. Neuchatel, Libraires Associes, 1764. Senelier 1739
8vo, engraved portrait, pp. xxiv, [25]-464; vol. XVI - XVII Lettres écrites de la Montagne. First
edition. 8vo, pp. [viii], [i] advertisement du libraire, [i], 334; 8vo, pp. [ii], 226, [2] catalogue des
livres, [2] errata, [231]-395, [5] contents, signatures bb, cc and dd browned, due to paper stock;
uniformly bound in contemporary marbled calf, spines gilt in compartments, with two gilt-lettered
lettering and numbering pieces; sides with triple gilt filets; some surface abrasions and short worm
traces to joints; overall an attractive set in good condition.
S US AN NE SCH UL Z -F ALST ER R ARE BO OK S
First edition of two of Rousseau's most important works, the Contract
Social and Emile, uniformly bound in a set together with some of his
other works, clearly put together by an early reader.
First edition, second issue, of the Contract Social, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau's most important political work, which influenced both the
American and the French Revolution. 'It had the most profound
influence on the political thinking of the generation following its
publication. It was, after all, the first great 'emotional' plea for the
equality of all men in the state: others had argued the same
theoretically, but had themselves tolerated a very different
government. Rousseau believed passionately in what he wrote, and
when in 1789 a similar emotion was released on a national scale, the
Contract Social came into its own as the bible of the revolutionaries in
building their ideal state'. 'In practice his attempts to balance volonté
de tous and volonté générale could result only in anarchy.
Nevertheless his fundamental thesis that government depends
absolutely on the mandate of the people, and his genuine creative insight into the political and
economic problems of society gives his work an indisputable cogency' (PMM 207).
First edition of Emile, arguably Rousseau's best-known work. The
publication history of the book was complex. This is the first 8vo edition,
which, though printed second, was actually published and distributed first
(see McEachern, pp. 16-7).
First edition of the Lettres écrites de la Montagne, written while Rousseau
was in exile in Switzerland. They were a response to the attack by the
procurator-general Tronchin in his 'Lettres de la campagne'. This work,
which contains autobiographical elements later further developed in the
Confessions (written 1764-70), showed Rousseau's allegiance to the cause
of the ordinary citizens of Geneva in their struggles against the political
elite. It was condemned by the Parlement in 1765. (Dufour I, 232;
Tchemerzine V, 550 - both bibliographies call for an added errata leaf not
present here).
I. Contract Social: Dufour 133; Printing and the Mind of Man 207; Sénelier,
Bibliographie Rousseau 554; Tchemerzine V 543; see Leigh, Unsolved Problems in the Bibliography of J.-J.
Rousseau, Cambridge, 1990. II. Émile: Dufour 1925; McEachern 1 A; Tchemerzine V, 545.
S US AN NE SCH UL Z -F ALST ER R ARE BO OK S