Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1712. He spent much of his life travelling around Switzerland and France, working variously as a footman, seminarist and tutor. His writings included entries on music for Diderot's Encyclopédie, the novels La nouvelle Héloise (1761) and Émile (1762), and numerous political and philosophical texts. He also fathered five children - all of whom he abandoned to a foundling home - by Thérèse Levasseur, a servant girl. The crowning achievement of his political philosophy was The Social Contract, published in 1762. That same year he wrote an attack on religion that resulted in his exile to England. In 1770 Rousseau completed his Confessions. His last years were spent largely in France where he died in 1778.

Quintin Hoare has translated from Italian, French, German, Russian and Bosnian, winning the John Florio Prize in 1978/9, the Scott-Moncrieff Prize in 1984 and the Schlegel-Tieck Prize in 1989. He was general editor of the Pelican Marx Library, and since 1997 has been director of The Bosnian Institute.

Christopher Bertram is Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the University of Bristol. He is the author of Rousseau and The Social Contract (Routledge, 2002) and is a past President of the Rousseau Association.