Thus far, Alain Alcouffe and I have explored Adam Smith’s possible motives for visiting the Swiss city-state of Geneva in the fall of 1765 (cf. the map of Geneva below, circa 1760). Among other things, we established a possible connection between Smith and the syndic Marc Turretin, one of the leading patricians of the Genevan Republic, as well as between Smith and Voltaire, who lived nearby in the village of Ferney and who was embroiled in two disputes at the time of Smith’s visit, one with a young English aristocrat, Charles Dillon; the other with Dillon’s tutor John Needham. But what else is there to say about Adam Smith’s sojourn in Switzerland? As it happens, a lot! Below are some additional topics that we have been busy researching this fall:

• The “Watchmakers’ Guild of Geneva”: a case study of Adam Smith’s scathing critique of watchmaker apprenticeships in The Wealth of Nations.
• Dr Théodore Tronchin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the Geneva theatre controversy.
• Geneva as an English enclave: the case of Lord and Lady Stanhope.
• L’égérie des philosophes (“the philosophers’ muse”) — Smith, Turgot, and the duchesse d’Enville.
• Salon society and the “Republic of Letters”: the Charles Bonnet-John Needham-Duchesse d’Enville connection.
• Pinning down Adam Smith’s arrival and departure dates and retracing his travels to and from Geneva.

Although Christmas and New Year’s Day are around the corner, rest assured we will share our preliminary results regarding these sundry aspects of Smith’s Swiss travels in the days ahead …