The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau: With the Reveries of the Solitary Walker.

ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques.

$4,000.00

Item Number: 144141

London: Printed for J. Bew, 1783.

Rare first edition in English of the author’s classic work. 12mo, 2 volumes, bound in full contemporary marbled calfskin. In very good condition, bookplate. Housed in a custom folding case.

First published in 1782, four years after Rousseau's death, his Confessions is notable as one of the first major autobiographies. Prior to the Confessions, the two great autobiographies were Augustine's own Confessions and Saint Teresa's Life of Herself. Providing an account of the experiences that shaped Rousseau's personality and ideas, the work was also noted for its detailed account of Rousseau's more humiliating and shameful moments. Founded in 1922 in London by Francis Meynell, his second wife Vera Mendel, and their mutual friend David Garnett, The Nonesuch Press was established in the basement of Garnett's bookshop in Soho. Nonesuch was unusual among private presses in that it used a small hand press to design books and then had them printed by commercial printers. Among the press's best-known editions were the collected works of William Congreve and William Wycherley and translations of Cervantes and Dante.