Susanne Schulz-Falster Catalogue Ten - Schulz-Falster Rare Books

absolutely on the mandate of the people, and his genuine creative insight
into a number of political and economic problems, gives his work an indisputable
cogency.
I. Bengesco 169; Sénelier 721; this edition not found in RLIN or OCLC; II.
Sénelier 1470; OCLC lists copies at McGill and the Wellcome Library.
263 ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Du Contrat Social, ou Principes
du Droit Politique. Bordeaux, Phillipot, III. Année Républicaine
[1795]. £400
12mo, pp. 132, 129–223, [vere 227]; slight discolouring to paper;
attractively bound in vellum-backed boards, gilt-lettered spine label;
unusual decoration to spine.
Revolutionary edition of Rousseau’s seminal work. It was, after all, the Wrst
great ‘emotional’ plea for the equality of all men in the state: others had argued
the same theoretically, but had themselves tolerated a very diVerent
government. Rousseau believed passionately in what he wrote, and when in
1789 a similar emotion was released on a national scale, the Contrat Social
came into its own as the bible of the revolutionaries in building their ideal
state’. Quite understandably there are numerous revolutionary editions of
Rousseau’s seminal work.
This edition not in Dufour.
First Amsterdam Edition
264 ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Emile, ou de l’éducation. Selon la
copie de Paris. No place (i.e. Amsterdam, J. Néaulme), 1762. £950
Four parts bound in two volumes, 8vo, pp. [iv], viii, 224; [iv], 192;
[iv], 168; [iv], 243; with an engraved frontispiece and Wve engraved
plates by J. v. Schley and S. Fokke after C. Eisen; volume I with a small
dampstain in the upper blank margin; occasional dust-soiling;
contemporary polished calf, gilt ornamental border on sides, gilt back
with raised bands and gilt lettering; expert repairs to head and foot of
spines; a good copy with some pencil annotations in the blank margins.
First Amsterdam edition, very rare, of Rousseau’s Émile, one of the most
inXuential texts in the history of Western education. The Amsterdam printing
is especially rare, since it was banned before publication (for full details
see McEachern).
Émile represents to a large extent a synthesis and continuation of
Montaigne and Locke. The attack launched upon it by church and state – it
was banned by the archbishop of Paris, by the Sorbonne and by the civil
government – centred, however not on Rousseau’s pedagogical theory, but
on his statement on natural religion, which he proposed to substitute for
the dogma of revealed religion. Few books have had greater immediate
eVect on educational thought than Rousseau’s Emile.
McEachern, nr. 2; Dufour 195; Le Petit, p. 563–4; Peignot, ii, p. 94.
susanne schulz-falster rare books catalogue ten
One of the Rarest of Rousseau’s First Editions
265 ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Rousseau juge de Jean Jacques.
Dialogues. Premier Dialogue. D’après le Manuscrit de M. Rousseau,
laissé entre les mains de M. Brooke Boothby. LichWeld, J. Jackson, ...
et se vend a Londres chez Dodsley, Cadell, Elmsley, et Strahan.
1780. £3000
8vo, pp. [xii], 334, including errata and editor’s note; entirely uncut in
the original wrappers; upper wrapper torn, with loss of lower corner,
subsequent dust-soiling to front free endpaper; contemporary
ownership inscription in ink by John Wright, Edinburgh; preserved in a
custom-made fold-over box.
First edition of this rare autobiographical work by Rousseau, much less well
known and less reWned than his Confessions, but of great biographical interest
about Rousseau at a critical stage in his life. Written between 1770 and
1776, this work presents an attempt by Rousseau to put the record straight.
It is a clear outcome of his persecution complex, which led to disagreements
with many of his former co-philosophers, especially Grimm, Diderot,
d’Alembert, and Voltaire. This work is in the form of a dialogue between
Rousseau himself and his alter ego, who, though distinct from Rousseau,
expresses his thoughts. The topic of discussion is the works of Jean-Jacques,
who again is treated as somewhat distinct from Rousseau the participant in
the dialogue.
Rousseau Wnished the text of three dialogues in 1776, and after some
misgivings about publishing it in France entrusted the manuscript to a
young Englishman Brooke Boothby (1743–1824), whom he had met earlier
in England and who at this time resided in France, and agreed with him
to have the Dialogues printed in England. Boothby left when Rousseau had
only Wnished copying the Wrst dialogue, which Boothby duly took with him
to England. This is the text which is printed in the present volume. The full
manuscript was not printed until after Rousseau’s death in a collected edition
of 1782.
In the note preWxed to the errata printed on the Wnal leaf, Boothby apologizes
of the printing errors, caused by the provincial typesetter in LichWeld.
Distribution was to be shared between Boothby and the Amsterdam publisher
Marc Michel Rey (see Dufour (344). Due to these complicated distribution
arrangements, this work is one of the rarest of Rousseau Wrst
editions.
Dufour 345; Senelier I, 153; ESTC t137132 recording copies at the British Library
and Oxford in the British Isles, and Yale and Rochester University in
America; there is also another variant of this 334 page edition (ESTC n013056,
not listing the names of the London booksellers), and a number of reprints of the
same year.