Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Eloisa : $b or, A series of original lettersThe Project Gutenberg eBook of Eloisa This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Eloisa or, A series of original letters Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Translator: W. Kenrick Release date: August 6, 2025 [eBook #76639] Language: English Original publication: London: Griffiths, Becket, and DeHondt, 1761 Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76639 Credits: Veronica Litt and Subyeta Haque from scans generously made available by Gale Cengage. *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELOISA *** Eloisa: Or, a Series of Original Letters Collected and published by J.J. Rousseau Translated from the French. In Four Volumes. The Second Edition. London: Printed for R. Griffiths, at the Dunciad, and T. Becket and P.A. DeHondt at Tully's Head, in the Strand. MDCCLXI. Translation of M. Rousseau's Preface Great cities require public theatres, and romances are necessary to a corrupt people. I saw the manners of the times, and have published these letters. Would to heaven I had lived in an age when I ought rather to have thrown them in the fire! Though I appear only as the editor of this work, I confess that I have had some share in the composition. But am I the sole author, and is the entire correspondence fictitious? Ye people of the world, of what importance is it to you? Certainly, to you, it is all a fiction. Every honest man will avow the books which he publishes. I have prefixed my name to these letters, not with a design to appropriate them to myself, but that I might be answerable for them. If they deserve censure, let it fall on me; if they have any merit, I am not ambitious of the praise. If it is a bad book, I am the more obliged to own it: I do not wish to pass for better than I am. As to the reality of the history, I declare that, though I have been several times in the country of the two lovers, I never heard either of Baron D'Etange, his daughter, Mr. Orbe, Lord B----, or Mr. Wolmar. I must also inform the reader that there are several topographical errors in this work; but whether they are the effect of ignorance or design, I leave undetermined. This is all I am at liberty to say: let every one think as he pleases. The book seems not calculated for an extensive circulation, as it is not adapted to the generality of readers. The stile will offend people of taste, to austere men the matter will be alarming, and all the sentiments will seem unnatural to those who know not what is meant by the word virtue. It ought to displease the devotee, the libertine, the philosopher; to shock all the ladies of gallantry, and to scandalize every modest woman. By whom, therefore, will it be approved? Perhaps only by myself: certain I am, however, that it will not meet with _moderate_ approbation from any one. Whoever may resolve to read these letters ought to arm himself with patience against faults of language, rusticity of stile, and pedantry of expression; he ought to remember that the writers are neither natives of France, wits, academicians, nor philosophers; but that they are young and unexperienced inhabitants of a remote village, who mistake the romantic extravagance of their own imagination, for philosophy. Why should I fear to speak my thoughts? This collection of letters, with all their gothic air, will better suit a married lady than books of philosophy: it may even be of service to those who, in an irregular course of life, have yet preserved some affection for virtue. As to young ladies, they are out of the question; no chaste virgin ever read a romance: but if perchance any young girl should dare to read a single page of this, she is inevitably lost. Yet let her not accuse me as the cause of her perdition: the mischief was done before; and since she has begun, let her proceed, for she has nothing worse to fear. May the austere reader be disgusted in the first volume, revile the Editor, and throw the book into the fire. I shall not complain of injustice; for probably, in his place, I might have acted in the same manner. But if after having read to the end, any one should think fit to blame me for having published the book, let him, if he pleases, declare his opinion to all the world, except to me; for I perceive it would never be in my power to esteem such a man. Preface by the Translator It is by no means my design to swell the volume, or detain the reader from the pleasure he may reasonably expect in the perusal of this work: I say _reasonably_, because the author is a writer of great reputation. My sole intention is to give a concise account of my conduct in the execution of this arduous task; and to anticipate such accusations as may naturally be expected from some readers: I mean those who are but imperfectly acquainted with the French language, or who happen to entertain improper ideas of translation in general. If I had chosen to preserve the original title, it would have stood thus: _Julia, or the New Eloisa_, in the general title-page; and in the particular one, _Letters of two Lovers, inhabitants of a small village at the foot of the Alps, collected and published,_ &c. Whatever objection I might have to this title, upon the whole, my principal reason for preferring the name of Eloisa to that of Julia, was, because the public seemed unanimous in distinguishing the work by the former rather than the latter, and I was the more easily determined, as it was a matter of no importance to the reader. The English nobleman who acts a considerable part in this romance, is called in the original, Lord Bomston, which I suppose Mr. Rousseau thought to be an English name, or at least very like one. It may possibly sound well enough in the ears of a Frenchman; but I believe the English reader will not be offended with me for having substituted that of Lord B---- in its room. It is amazing that the French novelists should be as ignorant of our common names, and the titles of our nobility, as they are of our manners. They seldom mention our country, or attempt to introduce an English character, without exposing themselves to our ridicule. I have seen one of their celebrated romances, in which a British nobleman, called the Duke of _Workinsheton_, is a principal personage; and another, in which the one identical lover of the heroine is sometimes a Duke, sometimes an Earl, and sometimes a simple Baronet; _Catombridge_ is, with them, an English city: and yet they endeavour to impose upon their readers by pretending that their novels are translations from the English. With regard to this _Chef d'oeuvre_ of Mr. Rousseau, it was receive |