Rousseau’s Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (First Discourse) appeared in print after winning the Academy of Dijon’s essay prize, launching his public reputation as a major critic of “progress” and its moral costs.
Rousseau published Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (Second Discourse), a landmark work of speculative anthropology and political critique that deepened his break with standard Enlightenment narratives of improvement.
Rousseau published Letter to Monsieur d’Alembert on the Theatre, attacking proposals for a theatre in Geneva and arguing that spectacles can undermine civic virtue—an intervention that sharpened his conflicts with fellow philosophes.
Rousseau’s epistolary novel Julie; or, The New Heloise was published and became an immediate sensation, greatly expanding his readership and cultural influence beyond philosophical circles.
Rousseau published Du contrat social (The Social Contract), articulating a theory of legitimate political authority grounded in popular sovereignty and the “general will,” quickly becoming one of the era’s most controversial political books.
Rousseau published Émile, ou De l’éducation. The Parlement of Paris issued a formal decree condemning the work and ordering it torn and burned, signaling that Rousseau’s educational and religious arguments had become a prosecutable public threat.
Authorities publicly burned copies of The Social Contract and Émile in Paris, dramatizing Rousseau’s fall from tolerated celebrity to hunted author and helping precipitate his flight from arrest.
Rousseau published Lettres écrites de la montagne (Letters Written from the Mountain), directly intervening in Genevan political conflict and defending The Social Contract while criticizing Geneva’s ruling council and religious intolerance.
Rousseau began composing Les Confessions (first part drafted 1765–1767), extending Enlightenment autobiography into a highly self-analytical public account that would later influence modern conceptions of personal narrative and sincerity.
After years of increasingly hostile local reaction during his Swiss refuge, Rousseau was driven from Môtiers—part of the cascade of expulsions and relocations that marked his post-1762 public life.
Rousseau departed for Britain with David Hume, seeking protection and stability after years of censorship and displacement; their collaboration soon became strained, shaping Rousseau’s later self-defensive writings and public image.
Rousseau and his long-time partner Thérèse Levasseur underwent a marriage ceremony (often described as legally irregular), formalizing their relationship late in his life amid ongoing insecurity and travel.
Rousseau accepted René de Girardin’s invitation to live at Ermenonville, where he spent his final weeks and continued his late-life pursuits (including solitary walks and botanical interests) in a setting designed around Rousseauian “nature.”
Rousseau died at Ermenonville, closing a public life defined by literary breakthrough, philosophical provocation, censorship, and repeated exile; his posthumous influence would accelerate through revolutionary politics and later literary culture.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: writings and public life (1749–1778)
