Letters from Rousseau is the first extensive collection of translations of Rousseau's correspondence into English in more than eighty years. Many of the letters have not been translated before, while others address substantive issues in his thought and complement his published writings. Although these letters went through the post as ordinary letters, once Rousseau became famous, he knew that they might be opened by the police and that they were very likely to be circulated and even published. Indeed, he wrote some of them with a view to their ultimate publication.

Rousseau's enormous "private" correspondence extends into all periods of his life, including intimate letters to friends, letters to famous individuals, and responses to readers who posed philosophic questions to him. Thus, Eve Grace and Christopher Kelly also share his responses to readers who had been moved by his books. Further, this volume includes letters written to or about major intellectual figures, such as Diderot, Voltaire, Hume, and Mirabeau.