What is the plot of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel Julie; or, The New Eloise?

Julie; or, The New Eloise (1761) is a celebrated epistolary novel by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that explores the pursuit of happiness within domestic life.12

The plot centers on Saint-Preux, a middle-class tutor who falls in love with his upper-class pupil, Julie. Although their love is mutual, the rigid social classes of the time prevent them from marrying. Julie’s father, Baron d’Étange, insists she marry a nobleman named Wolmar. As a dutiful daughter, Julie complies and marries Wolmar, while Saint-Preux departs on a voyage around the world with an English aristocrat, Bomston.1

Years later, Saint-Preux returns and is hired as a tutor for the Wolmar children. The household lives in harmony, with Julie finding fulfillment as a wife and mother. However, the story concludes with a poignant realization: after Julie falls ill while rescuing one of her children from drowning, she admits that her love for Saint-Preux has never truly faded. The novel is noted for its influence on Romanticism and its exploration of the tension between personal emotion and social order.1