The masterly critical edition of the Correspondance complète de Rousseau in 52 volumes, edited and annotated by Ralph Leigh, was first published between 1965 and 1998, in Geneva and then in Oxford. Critics are unanimous in hailing this edition as a model of its kind. It is this monument that Liverpool University Press, in partnership with the Voltaire Foundation, that has been made available as an ebook collection for the first time.

Scientifically impeccable, this edition meets the highest scholarly standards in every respect. The fruit of more than 25 years of research, it offers a wealth of information and an astounding degree of accuracy, providing an essential record of the public and private life of one of the most important figures in eighteenth-century literature and the history of ideas. This edition has been the subject of exemplary care from start to finish: the meticulous precision of the explanatory notes, which involve a huge amount of archival work, and the quality of the remarks, leave us astonished.

The Correspondance complète de Rousseau is the first edition to include all the letters written by Rousseau or addressed to him, as well as all correspondence between third parties on a broad range of subjects relating to the philosophe and his time, together with a large number of additional documents. Drafts and copies have been collated against the original manuscripts and all variants reproduced. Ralph Leigh’s extensive annotations provide information on a host of characters who played a role in the intellectual circle of the time, identify events and places, explain eighteenth-century linguistic usage, give bibliographical information and clarify obscure allusions.

But while the edition of this correspondence offers invaluable documentary resources, it also provides access to a body of work that can be read for itself and in relation to other Rousseau’s works: reading the correspondence invites us to re-read the epistolary fiction of La Nouvelle Heloise, the autobiographical project of Les Confessions, and also Rousseau’s theoretical and polemical works. A vast repository of open questions, the Correspondence continues to profoundly renew critical approaches to Rousseau and his time.

 In this edition, Rousseau’s correspondence occupies volumes 1 to 40 of the collection; volumes 41 to 49 presents posthumous letters and documents concerning, in particular, the various editions of Rousseau’s works published after his death, the birth of Rousseauism and Rousseau’s influence on the Revolution. The indexes occupying volumes 51-52 already provided a very useful and effective research tool. Correspondance complète de Rousseau ONLINE is now available and will provide invaluable services to researchers. As a result, it makes this fantastic collection not only more accessible, but also enriches it by making it cross-searchable.

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— Christophe Martin, Sorbonne Université

Find out more about the new digital collection or the print book series.

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