ROUSSEAU (Jean-Jacques). Confessions, followed by Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Genève, s.n. [Société typographique], 1782. 2 volumes in-8, marbled basane, spine decorated, red edges (contemporary binding). First edition of the first six books of the Confessions and the Rêveries, published by Paul Moultou and Pierre-Alexandre Du Peyrou from the manuscript Rousseau left them on his death. It was printed by the Société typographique de Genève on behalf of C. J. Panckoucke and other European booksellers. The Rêveries occupy 300 pp. under separate pagination at the end of the second volume. Books VI to XII of the Confessions were not published until 1789 by Pierre Moultou. Yves Peyré writes: "The Confessions are the flip side of Rousseau's moral and political contribution: the city gives way to the subject. And this subject is Jean-Jacques himself, the chosen one, the unscathed man who paints his portrait [...]. The Confessions are the relay (between Montaigne and Proust) of an art of saying oneself, of sharpening oneself to the cutting edge of one's proof of life through a counter-proof of speech". A fine copy bound in contemporary marbled basane. In the second volume, worm holes without gravity in the bottom of the first and last leaves, angular lack p. 7, small halo at the bottom of pp. 33-48. Minor restorations to corners and spines. Dufour, n°340 - Gagnebin, n°1 - R.-A. Leigh, Unsolved Problems in the Bibliography of Rousseau, pp. 133-137 - Calemard, L'édition originale des Confessions, pp. 85-89 - En français dans le texte, n°162 (Y. Peyré).