Abstract

Philosophers and historians of the French Revolution have seen Rousseau's influence as the decisive link between the doctrines of the Enlightenment and the practice of its revolutionary disciples. Professor Leigh here addresses the bibliographical foundations of that question, without which all attempts to settle it in the past have lacked authority. Introducing the most advanced techniques to identify variant and pirate editions of Rousseau's writings, he establishes that there were at least 28 separate imprints and an additional 12 reprints of the Contrat Social in collective editions between 1762 and 1783. Professor Leigh shows also that Rousseau's life and thought excited a fascination and interest in the last years of the Ancien Regime which was nursed by the publishers of his Oeuvres, who sought to satisfy an apparently ceaseless demand by extending their editions, while at the same time attempting to ward off both their creditors and their imitators.