12mo. In four volumes. xix, [1], 310; [4], 263, [1]; [4], 268; [4], 292pp, [56]. With half-titles, six engraved plates, and four terminal leaves of publisher's advertisements to Vol. IV. Handsomely bound in contemporary gilt-tooled tree-calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-pieces. A trifle rubbed. Marbled endpapers, recent bookplates of Basil Jacobs to versos of all FFEPs, early inked ownership inscriptions to front blank fly-leaves, very occasional light spotting.

A handsomely bound copy of an early edition of William Kenrick's (1729/30-1779) translation of Rousseau's influential on the education of youth, Émile, ou De l'éducation.

The work is notable for the infamous section on the 'Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar' which attracted widespread condemnation and caused the book to be banned in Paris and Geneva and publicly burned.

Rousseau's thoughts on the education of women were no less controversial; women's rights activist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) abhorred the book and in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman took the opportunity to excoriate the philosopher:

''Educate women like men,' says Rousseau, 'and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they have over us.' This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves'.

Kenrick's translation was first published in 1762, the same year as the French original.