Wordsworth Classics of World Literature: The Confessions

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<strong>This translation first appeared in a privately printed edition in 1904 (the translator remains anonymous).</strong> <strong>With an Introduction by Derek Matravers.</strong> When it was first published in 1781, <em>The Confessions</em> scandalised Europe with its emotional honesty and frank treatment of the author's sexual and intellectual development. Since then, it has had a more profound impact on European thought. Rousseau left posterity a model of the reflective life - the solitary, uncompromising individual, the enemy of servitude and habit and the selfish egoist who dedicates his life to a particular ideal. <em>The Confessions</em> recreates the world in which he progressed from incompetent engraver to grand success; his enthusiasm for experience, his love of nature, and his uncompromising character make him an ideal guide to eighteenth-century Europe, and he was the author of some of the most profound work ever written on the relation between the individual and the state.