These memoirs constitute the main source of Rousseau's reputation as a leader in the transition from eighteenth-century reason to nineteenth-century romanticism. His memoir is regarded as the first modern autobiography, in which the writer defined his life mainly in terms of his worldly experiences and personal feelings. Rousseau wrote treatises on education and politics as well as novels and operas, and as one of the most influential and controversial of the Enlightenment thinkers, he inspired the leaders of the French Revolution. Only a few popular autobiographies existed before philosopher, author, and composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) published his Confessions. |a Modern library of the world's best books. |a The Modern library of the world's best books

|a The confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

This edition includes a biographical afterword. 'The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau' is a significant text because of its wit, its honesty, and its portrayal of French history and society. But aside from his comedy, Rousseau also discusses the difficulty of living in a culture that banned his earlier works and friends who betrayed him during the revolutionary times.

He is a gambler, a trickster, a gossip, and a mastermind all in one body. He took a risk in generating a contemptible persona as representative of his voice, but he then draws the reader to his side by his blatantly comical honesty.

Critics and readers often refer to Rousseau as a 'genius', not only for his other works, but also because of the 'Confessions'. He creates a portrait of himself that he wanted readers to remember, drawing from a humorous inner-monologue that his 'character' created. Highly scandalous yet witty in nature, calling Rousseau's work an 'autobiography' is a loose categorization of the text, as many of the stories and tales have been proven false, yet Rousseau told the truth about the spirit of his life through the book. Up until its publication in 1782, only two autobiographies had ever been written, and both were written by devout religious saints. 'The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau' is a one-of-a-kind autobiography.

Confessions jj rousseau