Emile, ou De l'education.

Third duodecimo edition, dated the same year as the first edition and, according to McEachern, published in Paris by Duchesne, illustrated with 5 fine plates by Eisen, two in the first volume and one as frontispiece to each of the other volumes. Title-pages printed in red and black. As called for, the first volume has no half-title, unlike the other three volumes. From the watermark "Romanet" "fin", McEachern infers an actual publication date of 1774 or later. The Caillaud mill of the Romanet paper manufactory was, however, active from at least 1760, and editions dated 1762 are known bearing this watermark. We leave this question for specialists to resolve. 

Contemporary full mottled calf. Smooth spines richly gilt. Tan morocco lettering- and numbering-pieces. Blue marbled edges. Loss at the head of volume III, a short wormtrack at the head of volume I, some rubbing. Loss to the lower blank corner of the final leaf of volume I. A handsome copy.

According to McEachern (Bibliography of the Writings of J. J. Rousseau), an edition bearing Néaulme's imprint was printed before the first octavo edition published by Duchesne, but was placed on sale after the octavo. Following the signing of the contract with the Maréchale de Luxembourg for the publication of Emile, Duchesne reached an agreement in November 1761 with the publisher Jean Néaulme for an edition to be issued outside France. He first had the Dutch edition printed — in fact a Paris printing — with Amsterdam given as the place of publication, then had these sheets reimposed in octavo with The Hague as the stated place of publication. Our edition would therefore constitute a new printing of this first duodecimo edition. 

These "official" editions should not be confused with the counterfeit edition dated 1762, which has a different collation. It must nevertheless be acknowledged that the duodecimo printings do not contain the same errors as the octavo printing and, moreover, that our copy displays certain features noted by Rochebilière (Bibliographie des éditions originales d'auteurs français...): in the octavo, on p. 10 of volume I, one reads L'essenciel, whereas the duodecimo has L'essentiel. It is known, however, that the proofs corrected by Rousseau himself were those of the duodecimo edition. One must therefore conjecture that the duodecimo benefited from Rousseau's corrections, while the octavo did not, having been printed directly from the duodecimo setting but without incorporating the corrected errors.