The "Manuscript of Geneva" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau is the first draft, the initial version, of his seminal work The Social Contract. It is the final outline that Rousseau delivered to the publisher Michel Rey in December 1760, approximately two years before the definitive edition of the Contract was published. During the intervening period, the text undergoes modifications and rearrangements.

Through the "Manuscript," the reader is given the opportunity to observe and understand the various conceptual shifts and transitions to which Rousseau's philosophy is subject in the search for solutions to the problem of modern democratic political union.

"Of all the Rousseau manuscripts that have come into our hands, this [the Manuscript of Geneva] is perhaps the most important. Its equals are only those that contain the State of War; the "Plan" of the constitution for Corsica; the early draft of the "Confessions"; above all, the notebook that included the rough draft of the article "Political Economy" from the Encyclopedia and the last five Letters from the Mountain."

(Charles Edouard Bon)