In Search Of Lost Time Vol 1 : Swann's Way

The definitive translation of the greatest French novel of the twentieth century

In the opening volume of Proust's great novel, the narrator travels backwards in time in order to tell the story of a love affair that had taken place before his own birth. Swann's jealous love for Odette provides a prophetic model of the narrator's own relationships. All Proust's great themes - time and memory, love and loss, art and the artistic vocation - are here in kernel form.

A new definitive text of Marcel Proust's novel was published by the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade in 1989. For the present six-volume edition, D. J. Enright has further revised Terence Kilmartin's acclaimed revision of C. K. Scott Moncrieff's translation, and has incorporated significant new material. As a result, Proust's masterpiece emerges with renewed freshness and authority in this unassailable translation. Each volume contains notes, addenda and synopses, and the sixth and final volume also includes a Guide to the complete work.

About the Author

Marcel Proust was born in Auteuil in 1871. In his twenties he became a conspicuous society figure, frequenting the most fashionable Paris salons of the day. After 1889, however, his suffering from chronic asthma, the death of his parents and his growing disillustionment with humanity caused him to lead an increasingly retired life. He slept by day and worked by night, writing letters and devoting himself to the completion of A la recherche du temps perdu. He died in 1922 before publication of the last three volumes of his great life's work.