# Is "Émile, ou De l'éducation" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Émile, ou De l'éducation by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne, Paris — issued under false Néaulme imprints, 1762) is identified by: The true first is Duchesne's Paris printing of 1762 in four volumes, issued in two formats: a duodecimo carrying the false imprint 'A Amsterdam, Chez Jean Neaulme' (McEachern 1b) and an octavo carrying the false imprint 'A La Haye, Chez Jean Néaulme'. A French original-language first; there is no competing true first in another language.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is Duchesne's Paris printing of 1762 in four volumes, issued in two formats: a duodecimo carrying the false imprint 'A Amsterdam, Chez Jean Neaulme' (McEachern 1b) and an octavo carrying the false imprint 'A La Haye, Chez Jean Néaulme'
- Titles are printed in red and black, with five engravings including frontispieces after Charles Eisen
- Half-titles are normally absent from volume I but present in volumes II–IV, and the blank leaf P12 in volume III is usually excised
- The octavo is normally found with all four cancels; copies retaining the cancellanda (the original uncancelled leaves) are exceedingly rare — McEachern located a single copy, at Stuttgart, holding the two cancellanda of volume I, and none at all for volume II. McEachern records that the duodecimo sheets were set and printed first and then re-imposed for printing in octavo, but that the octavo appears to have been issued first, and states that the question of the order of printing 'has not yet been resolved to everyone's satisfaction' — so no confident 12mo-versus-8vo precedence should be asserted
- Publisher imprint reads Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne, Paris — issued under false Néaulme imprints
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
| Publisher | Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne, Paris — issued under false Néaulme imprints |
| Year | 1762 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is Duchesne's Paris printing of 1762 in four volumes, issued in two formats: a duodecimo carrying the false imprint 'A… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
The true first is Duchesne's Paris printing of 1762 in four volumes, issued in two formats: a duodecimo carrying the false imprint 'A Amsterdam, Chez Jean Neaulme' (McEachern 1b) and an octavo carrying the false imprint 'A La Haye, Chez Jean Néaulme'. Titles are printed in red and black, with five engravings including frontispieces after Charles Eisen. Half-titles are normally absent from volume I but present in volumes II–IV, and the blank leaf P12 in volume III is usually excised. The octavo is normally found with all four cancels; copies retaining the cancellanda (the original uncancelled leaves) are exceedingly rare — McEachern located a single copy, at Stuttgart, holding the two cancellanda of volume I, and none at all for volume II. McEachern records that the duodecimo sheets were set and printed first and then re-imposed for printing in octavo, but that the octavo appears to have been issued first, and states that the question of the order of printing 'has not yet been resolved to everyone's satisfaction' — so no confident 12mo-versus-8vo precedence should be asserted.

## Is this the true first?
A French original-language first; there is no competing true first in another language. The census note requires correction on one point: no 1762 issue carries a Paris imprint. Both collected Duchesne formats bear false Néaulme imprints — Amsterdam on the duodecimo, The Hague on the octavo — and both are collected as the first edition. Separately, under an agreement of November 1761 with Duchesne, Jean Néaulme produced a genuine parallel Amsterdam edition for distribution outside France; scholarship treats it as a distinct edition (Quaerendo 48:2, 2018, on the imprint formula 'Selon la Copie de Paris. Avec Permission tacite pour le Libraire') and it should not be conflated with the Duchesne printings.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Book-club issues do not exist for an eighteenth-century title. The operative trap is that a 'Jean Néaulme' 1762 imprint by itself establishes nothing, since Néaulme's own genuine parallel Amsterdam edition also exists alongside Duchesne's two false-imprint formats. Collate format (12mo versus 8vo), the five Eisen plates, the red-and-black titles, the half-title pattern across volumes I–IV, and the cancels against McEachern rather than reading the imprint at face value.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Émile, ou De l'éducation* by Jean-Jacques Rousseau a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/mile-ou-de-l-ducation
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.