Major Works

• Reveries of a Solitary Walker

  - Recommended translation: The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, ed. and trans by Charles E. Butterworth (Indianapolis:Hackett Publishing Co., 1992). Originally published in 1782.
  Like the Confessions, the Reveries of a Solitary Walker is an autobiographical work by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Published posthumously in 1782, the Reveries is a collection of ten books, or “walks,” that describe Rousseau’s wanderings around Paris during… More

• Confessions

  - Recommended translation: Confessions, in The Confessions and Correspondence, Including the Letters to Malesherbes, The Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol 5. ed. by Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters, and Peter Stillman; trans. by Christopher Kelly (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England at Dartmouth College ,1995), 1-550.
  Published four years after Rousseau’s death in 1789, the Confessions was an autobiographical account of the first fifty-three years of the philosopher’s life. Rousseau declared that the work was groundbreaking with its opening line, “I… More

Commentary

• Rousseau’s Exemplary Life

  - Christopher Kelly,Rousseau’s Exemplary Life: The Confessions as Political Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).
  From the publisher: For Rousseau, “consecrating one’s life to the truth” (his personal credo) meant publicly taking responsibility for what one publishes and only publishing what would be of public benefit. Christopher Kelly argues that this… More