Du contrat social

No UK/US question — the original language is French and Rey's Amsterdam octavo of 1762 is the true first. The census is right that the octavo has priority but wrong that the two Rey formats were simultaneous: Rey printed and finished the octavo in March 1762 and only then set the cheaper duodecimo, completed some six weeks later (sources place it in April or mid-May). The genuine hazard is piracy, not format. Eleven counterfeit editions dated 1762 and two dated 1763 are recorded, in both octavo and duodecimo, and all but one falsely bear Rey's Amsterdam address — the Lyon piracy of Jean-Baptiste Réguilliat being the first to add the apocryphal letter and the marriage note. The imprint therefore proves nothing; verification runs on ornament and setting. Counterfeits omit the ornament at p. 76 and set page 1, line 7 ending in 'utili' rather than the genuine 'uti-'. One recorded counterfeit has a retouched vignette and shows characteristics of both states of the original, so a single point should never be relied on alone.