Julie, or the New Heloise: Letters of Two Lovers Who Live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps

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Rousseau’s great epistolary novel, Julie, or the New Heloise, an immediate continental sensation when it first appeared in 1761, was one of the most popular novels of its time. The story follows the fates and smoldering passions of Julie d’Étange and St. Preux, a tutor turned lover who later re-enters Julie’s life at the invitation of her husband, M. de Wolmar. Framed within the wider context of eighteenth-century French history and politics, their letters chronicle personal lives: meetings and partings, marriages, illnesses, accidents, and deaths. As the characters negotiate a complex maze of passion and virtue, their purity of soul and quest for honest morality reveal, according to Rousseau’s claim in his preface, “the subtleties of heart of which this work is full.” A comprehensive introduction and careful annotations make this novel readily accessible to contemporary readers. “An extraordinarily successful novel that . . . served as a model for much succeeding literature and exerted widespread influence on conceptions of love, morality, and life in nature . . . Stewart and Vaché have brought Rousseau’s masterpiece back to life for English speakers. Stewart’s spirited but brief introduction recognizes the novel’s formal and aesthetic qualities and makes a good argument for accepting the author’s title, by resurrecting the frequently elided ‘Julie.’ The annotations open outstanding, recent scholarship to English readers. Most important , however, is the translation itself . . . By any reasonable measure, Stewart and Vaché’s translation is a superb accomplishment.”— Choice “This fat and elegant volume, which sits nicely in the hand, is the first full translation of Rousseau’s Julie since 1761. It is a picture-book of sorts, containing the twelve engravings Rousseau commissioned and his detailed instructions to the engraver, along with running page references to the French Pléiade edition, a chronology, glossary, table of all the letters and their contents, bibliography of editions and secondary sources, seventy pages of editors’ notes with good prose and encyclopedic detail, and a precious index, where Plato for instance figures sixteen times. Stewart and Vaché add to these offerings a crisp introduction and note on the translation: this is, in short, a splendid reference tool for any student of European thought.”—European Romantic Review Philip Stewart is Professor of French and Literature at Duke University. His books include Engraven Desires: Eros, Image, and Text in the French Eighteenth Century (1992). Jean Vaché is former Associate Professor of English, Paul Valéry University, Montpellier , France. Dartmouth College Press Hanover, New Hampshire Published by University Press of New England Hanover and London / www.upne.com Literature Cover illustration courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University ISBN 0-87451-825-3 JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU JULIE, OR THE NEW HELOISE LETTERS OF TWO LOVERS WHO LIVE IN A SMALL TOWN AT THE FOOT OF THE ALPS THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROUSSEAU Vol. 6 TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY PHILIP STEWART AND JEAN VACHÉ ROGER D. MASTERS AND CHRISTOPHER KELLY, SERIES EDITORS DARTMOUTH COLLEGE PRESS HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE PUBLISHED BY UNIVERSITY PRESS OF NEW ENGLAND HANOVER AND LONDON A_Front.qxd 04 Oct 2007 10:29 AM Page iii spine background color wraps 6 pts onto back cover trim: 6" x 9 1/4" colors: black, Pantone 187 (red), and Pantone 522 (lavender) bulk = 768 pages on 500 ppi = 1.536" = 9p2.59 Jean-Jacques Rousseau julie or the new heloise Letters of Two Lovers who live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps Dartmouth Jean-Jacques Rousseau Letters of Two Lovers who live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps translated and annotated by philip stewart and jean vaché julie, julie or the new heloise J U L I E, O R T H E N E W H E L O I S E A_Front.qxd 04 Oct 2007 10:29 AM Page i A_Front.qxd 04 Oct 2007 10:29 AM Page ii ...