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Second large-type edition of the first part of one of the greatest autobiographies in any language, a milestone of enduring influence on the genre. This edition was printed in Neuchâtel, a line-for-line contrefaçon of the first edition published in Geneva by the Société typographique de Genève; it can be distinguished by a variant title page ornament. The Confessions had an enormous influence on the development of the autobiography in Europe. "Not only did it set new standards of frankness and self-revelation: its subject was quite new, the formation and analysis of a mind and personality. Just as significantly, it emphasised for the first time the importance and interest of childhood" (Leigh, p. 133). The edition includes the Reveries du Promeneur Solitaire (Reveries of the Solitary Walker), Rousseau's autobiographical meditations occasioned by his walks on the outskirts of Paris, also first published in the Geneva first edition of the Confessions. The Geneva edition appeared in April 1782; by May, there were multiple piracies in different formats. The original Geneva and this contrefaçon edition are both deemed as the only "large-type editions" by Leigh. Of the various piracies, this is the most significant and well-documented: "the most interesting perhaps is the handsome octavo contrefaçon produced by the Société typographique de Neuchâtel. the Société received their copy of the Geneva edition about 8 April 1778, from Barthélemy Chirol, a Genevan bookseller. For obvious reasons, they couldn't order it direct. They began work at once in the week ending 13 April. Printing was finished in the week ending 18 May 1782. The accounts are so detailed that we know the names of the compositors and the press-men, and the dates when the individual sheets came off the presses. This contrefaçon is such a close imitation of the large-type octavo produced by the Société typographique de Genève that it has often been mistaken for it" (Leigh, p. 136). All of these 1782 editions comprise books 1-6. A further two volumes of Confessions, comprising books 7-12, were left unpublished due to their concern with living persons. They were intended to remain unpublished until the next century, but one of the executors sold the manuscript for publication to a different publisher in 1789. The gap in publication and the unauthorized nature of the latter books ensures they are not often found together. R. A. Leigh, Unsolved Problems in the Bibliography of J.-J. Rousseau, 1990. 2 vols, octavo (192 x 118 mm). Contemporary marbled calf, red and green morocco labels, gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers, red edges. A little rubbed with a couple of trivial chips at extremities, slight superficial splits to joints, contents clean; a very good copy.
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