Indispensable to Rousseau scholarship today are two major publishing ventures of the past forty years, the Pléiade edition of his

Œuvres complètes , compiled by B. Gagnebin, M. Raymond, and others (Paris, 1959-95), and the Voltaire Foundation edition of his

Correspondance complète , by R. A. Leigh (Geneva and Oxford, 1965-98). Each is drawn from the original manuscripts and is richly documented with editorial notes, illustrating Rousseau’s sources and parallel passages across his writings. The long-awaited fifth volume of the

Œuvres complètes

embraces most of his works on music and language, including the

Dictionnaire de musique

and other texts never before published with a scholarly introduction or footnotes, although its fine edition of the

Essai sur l’origine des langues

by Jean Starobinski has been available for some time separately (Paris, 1990) and the same text was even earlier accorded extensive annotation by Charles Porset (2nd edn, Bordeaux, 1970). Of Rousseau’s principal works incorporated in the Pléiade edition, perhaps only the

Discours sur les sciences et les arts

Unknown page