Weird/obscure eighteenth century French stuff, at least if I felt guilty. Did you know Marat wrote a romance novel? Yep, that Marat. It's basically a kind of eighteenth century Polish War and Peace, about the then topical conflict involving the Confederates, with a bit of Romeo and Juliet in there too. It's very very period, sentimental, a bit Gothic, he is not the greatest literary talent but I unironically love it, found the central romance super cute because I have admittedly awful aesthetic taste in romance (still want more like it, Paul et Virginie was a disappointment, Lettres d'une Péruvienne is genuinely good but ultimately not actually romantic) and (not even in spite of his insistence on bringing the plot to a grinding halt to go off on one of his classic political rants at one point) it cemented my attachment to the writer. His anti-military views came across very strongly. It was prefaced with some comments from the creeps who underhandedly obtained it from his widow and lost the last page -fortunately the story remains fairly complete- and they didn't seem to know how to fit it into their preconceptions about him. Believe there's another one as well but afaik it only exists in manuscript form (and even if I had access I can't read his handwriting). There's still an awful lot of his political work I could have read instead (The Chains of Slavery is interesting and the original is the English version fwiw), I know I could be much more systematic about studying this period (guilt), but I'm not that sorry. Or for reading his essay on the treatment of gonorrhea. I'm in this in part for those little details.

Also, although it was a popular bestseller at the time and far from obscure, I want to know if anyone still reads Rousseau's terrible parenting advice? 10/10, absolutely hilarious and (I think deliberately, he seems like that) infuriating.