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Eloisa

First published: 1761
Pages: 814

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About this book

Rousseau published this in 1761, and it may have been the eighteenth century's best-selling novel. The story arrives almost entirely in letters, most passing between Julie d'Étange, daughter of a proud Vaudois baron, and Saint-Preux, the commoner hired to tutor her. Their love collides with rank: the baron long ago promised Julie to Wolmar, a comrade who once saved his life, and a tutor of no birth is unthinkable. Julie submits and marries, and the book settles at Clarens on Lake Geneva, where Wolmar, who knows the whole history, invites Saint-Preux back to raise his sons. What follows is less plot than a long argument about virtue, feeling, and how much people can trust their own hearts. The Alpine setting works as a moral force rather than backdrop. This is William Kenrick's 1761 translation, which renamed Julie as Eloisa.

About the author

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a Genevan philosopher and writer whose ideas on nature, education, and society helped shape the Enlightenment and the Romantic movement. His Confessions pioneered modern autobiography.