The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Kindle
$1.99
Available instantly
Audible Logo Audiobook
$0.00
with membership trial
Hardcover
$48.36
Paperback
$14.00
Audible Logo Your audiobook is waiting!
Enjoy a free trial on us
$0.00
  • Click above for unlimited listening to select audiobooks, Audible Originals, and podcasts.
  • One credit a month to pick any title from our entire premium selection — yours to keep (you'll use your first credit now).
  • You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
  • $14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel online anytime.
Learn more about membership
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
List Price: $52.26
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible’s Conditions Of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 131 ratings
See all formats and editions

Published four years after Rousseau's death, Confessions is a remarkably frank and honest self-portrait, described by Rousseau as "the history of my soul". From his idyllic youth in the Swiss mountains, to his career as a composer in Paris and his abandonment of his children, Rousseau lays bare his entire life with preternatural honesty. He relates his scandals, follies, jealousies, sexual exploits, and unrequited loves, as well as the torrential events surrounding his controversial works Discourses, Emile, and The Social Contract, which led to his persecution and wanderings in exile. Confessions provides an invaluable window into the making of the man, the society he lived in, and the development of ideas that would have a profound influence on philosophers and political theorists to come.

Previous page
  1. Listening Length
    29 hours and 6 minutes
  2. Author
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  3. Narrator
    Jonathan Keeble
  4. Audible release date
    August 5, 2020
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Naxos AudioBooks
  7. ASIN
    B08F676CNP
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
Next page

Read & Listen

Switch between reading the Kindle book & listening to the Audible audiobook with Whispersync for Voice.
Get the Audible audiobook for the reduced price of $7.49 after you buy the Kindle book.

Product details

Listening Length 29 hours and 6 minutes
Author Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Narrator Jonathan Keeble
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date August 05, 2020
Publisher Naxos AudioBooks
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B08F676CNP
Best Sellers Rank #180,326 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#233 in Political Philosophy (Audible Books & Originals)
#753 in Philosophy of Logic & Language
#2,564 in Political Philosophy (Books)

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
131 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

smallask
5.0 out of 5 stars Assigned for English Class
Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2012
Verified Purchase
I was given this book as part of the reading list of an english course I was taking in college. However, while reading the book, I came to appreciate it and continue reading it purely out of a personal need to finish it, and with less care of whether or not I was mandated to read it. The book is entertaining and the prose brilliant.

Rousseau seems to have written this book believing he is the first to make such an endeavor (that of a completely honest auto-biography). Though, I am very sure he is most definitely not the first to make such an attempt (e.g. Augustine's Confessions, etc), he is the first that I have enjoyed reading to such a degree. Sometimes Rousseau makes me cringe while reading of his hapless encounters with trouble and his naivete when faced with some deviant (for those days) behavior, and sometimes hard headed pursuit and/or belief in himself.

This book is great fun, and I would definitely recommend this book.

(To fans of Rousseau- after reading this book, I believe you might gain a greater/deeper understanding of his novel and characters in his book Emile).
7 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jnana
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice edition
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2022
Verified Purchase
As expected with the Everyman addition, this hardcover is nicely put together — quality binding, good paper and readable font.
Helpful
 Report
krebsman
4.0 out of 5 stars Allegedly the truth, but I'm skeptical
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2022
Verified Purchase
Oh, the 18th Century was strange! What interesting people it produced! I enjoyed this book enormously, even though it took me about 2 months of daily reading to finish its 606 pages. The big surprise (for me) was that Rousseau never finished it! Talk about a cliff-hanger ending! A few parts were boring (i.e., when he drops a lot of names of famous people of his time that I had never heard of), but in general, I found it fascinating. Of course, Rousseau lived more than a hundred years before Freud, but I do wonder if Freud ever read this book. The woman who inducted Rousseau into manhood was an older woman he called “Mama.” This was really yucky to me. He really loved her, although she later replaced him in her affections with another young man, just as he had replaced a different young man. They all got along famously. Yeah, I’d say he had an Oedipus complex. He was also a raving paranoic! And despite his upfront statements that he was going to tell the whole truth, even the bad things he was guilty of, I don’t think he was completely honest, especially when he states that so many things were happening at once that he really don’t remember it all that well. He had several convenient memory lapses. There are a lot of things that he very vague about. But my favorite part of the book was early on, after he runs away from home and an unhappy apprenticeship (His father had had to get out of the country to flee being thrown into debtor’s prison.) and attaches himself as a servant to the household of a rich, intellectual woman who was dying. I quote this passage:
“Indeed, I was more attentive to her than anyone else, for the poor woman’s suffering tore my heart, and the fortitude with which she bore it inspired me with the greatest respect and affection for her. Many were the genuine tears I shed in her room without her or anyone else noticing it.
Finally we lost her. I watched her die. She had lived like a woman of talents and intelligence; she died like a philosopher. I may say that she made the Catholic religion seem beautiful to me, by the serenity of heart with which she fulfilled its instructions, without either carelessness or affectation. She was of a serious nature. Towards the end of her illness she displayed a sort of gaiety too unbroken to be assumed, which was merely a counterpoise to her melancholy condition, the gift of her reason. She only kept her bed for the last two days, and continued to converse quietly with everyone to the last. Finally when she could no longer talk and was already in her death agony, she broke wind loudly. ‘Good,’ she said, turning over, ‘a woman who can fart is not dead.’ Those were the last words she spoke.”
Four stars from me.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Fran
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Edition
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2013
Verified Purchase
This edition is gorgeous, and the text is still as beautiful as it was when I first read it. I would reccomend this book to anyone. Truly anyone. Rousseau has such an uplifting voice, no matter what he is talking about. This is a book about what he is ashamed of, however, Rousseau presents it in such an optimistic way. This is a must read book.
4 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
pirateninj4
5.0 out of 5 stars Great inside look at one of histories most important intellectual figures
Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2019
Verified Purchase
Hard to read at times, the names of places and people run together a lot. But the book was a wonderful read and it was interesting reading something that detailed the life of an intellectual in France in that time.

Truly shows that while many things change, some things dont.
Helpful
 Report
ES
3.0 out of 5 stars Not the Penguin translation
Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
This Kindle version was advertised on the same page as the Penguin edition, but it's actually a 220 year old anonymous translation with archaic wording. It is serviceable, but not what was advertised.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Elperrocanservero
5.0 out of 5 stars Life
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2019
Verified Purchase
Excellent autobiography, love the richness in detail of all his memories and his impartiality when describing events in his life (although you can’t ever be sure with impartiality) regardless, a great, life lesson like read.
Helpful
 Report
Stephen Poole
1.0 out of 5 stars Small print! Avoid the Everyman's Library edition
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2024
Verified Purchase
These comments refer to the Everyman's Library Classics Series edition (w/ intro by P.N. Furbank): Buyer beware - the font is too small and (inexplicably) the margins are ample. (Note to Everyman's Library: Make your fonts larger!) Also, who translated this edition? The publisher buries this information: In small print at the end of the Intro, we're told that this is largely the work of an "anonymous translation" from 1904.
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

alice
5.0 out of 5 stars Two thumbs up
Reviewed in Canada on June 22, 2020
Verified Purchase
The media could not be loaded.
 What I like:
- sewn binding: sturdy, will last a LONG time
- book mark: nice added detail
- font style and size: clear and easy to read
What I did not like:
- the jacket is a little worn,
- book mark is braided and seems like it will unravel over time with moderate use

Overall I am very happy with this purchase. The Everyman’s library edition is made with quality and care.
Customer image
alice
5.0 out of 5 stars Two thumbs up
Reviewed in Canada on June 22, 2020
What I like:
- sewn binding: sturdy, will last a LONG time
- book mark: nice added detail
- font style and size: clear and easy to read
What I did not like:
- the jacket is a little worn,
- book mark is braided and seems like it will unravel over time with moderate use

Overall I am very happy with this purchase. The Everyman’s library edition is made with quality and care.
Images in this review
Customer image Customer image
Customer imageCustomer image
Report
Dorothy
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 18, 2019
Verified Purchase
Very good book
One person found this helpful
 Report
Vlad Rybicka
4.0 out of 5 stars A same kind of people...
Reviewed in Canada on October 12, 2015
Verified Purchase
....who were hunting down the author, after his death now celebrate his ideas and writings. How sad and in a certain way truthful account of our human behaviour???!!!
Report
Varna B
4.0 out of 5 stars A lively original
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 25, 2015
Verified Purchase
The first volume of this is a wonderful read, - the beginning of the genre really (apart from St Augustine). The second part is more of a plod and a tad tedious in places but worth pursuing as, after all, it is in that latter period that he achieves all that made him subsequently so famous and gave him such a significant place Western philosophy and educational theory. It is full of self criticism but also a great amount of self justification and the role of women in his life is revealed to be crucial and sometimes very odd. I felt a bit more sympathetic of his infamous treatment of his children after his, albeit justificatory, explanation.
3 people found this helpful
 Report
joseph o'kane
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 4, 2016
Verified Purchase
Great Kindle Edition of a Great Man xx
Report