ROUSSEAU, Jean Baptiste | Derôme | Oeuvres de Rousseau In a Contemporary Morocco Binding by DerômeROUSSEAU, [Jean Baptiste]. åuvres de Rousseau. Nouvelle édition. London: 1781.Two twelvemo volumes (4 5/8 x 2 13/16 inches; 118 x 72 mm.). [4], 252; [4], 276 pp. Engraved frontispiece portrait by Delvaux in Volume I.Contemporary full red morocco by Derôme. Covers with gilt triple fillet border, smooth spines decoratively tooled in gilt in panels with two olive green morocco gilt lettering labels, board edges with single gilt fillet, turn-ins decoratively tooled in gilt, all edges gilt, bright blue endpapers. The absolute bare minimum of rubbing to extremities. A wonderful copy.Volume I contains ìOdes sacrées,î ìOdes, Liv. II-IV,î and ìCantates allégoriques.î Volume II contains ìEpitres, Liv. I-II,î ìAllégories, Liv. I-II,î ìEpigrammes, Liv. I-IV,î and ìPoésies diverses.îJean-Baptiste ROUSSEAU (April 6, 1671- March 17, 1741), was a French poet. He was born in Paris, the son of a shoemaker, and was well educated. As a young man, he gained favour with Boileau, who encouraged him to write. Rousseau began with the theatre, for which he had no aptitude. A one-act comedy, Le Café, failed in 1694, and he was not much happier with a more ambitious play, Le Flatteur (1696), or with the opera Venus et Adonis (1697). In 1700 he tried another comedy, Le Capricieux, which had the same fate. He then went with Tallard as an attaché to London, and, in days when literature still led to high position, seemed likely to achieve success.His misfortunes began with a club squabble at the Café Laurent, which was much frequented by literary men, and where he indulged in lampoons on his companions. A shower of libellous and sometimes obscene verses was written by or attributed to him, and at last he was turned out of the café. At the same time his poems, as yet printed only singly or in manuscript, acquired him a great reputation, due to the dearth of genuine lyrical poetry between Jean Racine and André de Chénier. In 1701 he was made a member of the Académie des inscriptions; he was offered, though he had not accepted, profitable places in the revenue department; he had become a favourite of the libertine but influential côterie of the Temple; and in 1710 he presented himself as a candidate for the Académie française.Verses more offensive than ever were handed round, and gossip maintained that Rousseau was their author. Legal proceedings of various kinds followed, and Rousseau ascribed the lampoon to Joseph Saunin. In 1712 Rousseau was prosecuted for defamation of character, and, on his non-appearance in court, was condemned to perpetual exile. He spent the rest of his life in foreign countries except for a clandestine visit to Paris in 1738; he refused to accept the permission to return which was offered him in 1716 because it was not accompanied by complete rehabilitation.Prince Eugène and then other persons of distinction took him under their protection during his exile, and at Soleure he printed the first edition of his poetical works. He met Voltaire in Brussels in 1722. Voltaire's Le Pour et le contre is said to have shocked Rousseau, who expressed his sentiments freely. At any rate the latter had thenceforward no fiercer enemy than Voltaire. His death elicited from Jean-Jacques Lefranc, marquis de Pompignan an ode that was perhaps better than anything of Rousseau's own work. That work may be roughly divided into two sections. One consists of formal and partly sacred odes and cantatas of the stiffest character, of which perhaps the Ode a la fortune is the most famous; the other of brief epigrams, sometimes licentious and always, or almost always, ill-natured. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Rousseau). 1781 Price: USD 2,000.00 other currencies   order no. 00046    inquire

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