Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...
, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more recently as ''
In Search of Lost Time
''In Search of Lost Time'' (), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early twen ...
'') which was published in seven volumes between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century.
Proust was born in the Auteuil quarter of Paris, to a wealthy bourgeois family. His father, Adrien Proust, was a prominent pathologist and epidemiologist who studied
cholera
Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...
. His mother, Jeanne Clémence Weil, was from a prosperous Jewish family. Proust was raised in his father's
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
faith, though he later became an atheist. From a young age, he struggled with severe
asthma
Asthma is a common long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wh ...
attacks which caused him to have a disrupted education. As a young man, Proust cultivated interests in literature and writing while moving in elite Parisian high society salons frequented by aristocrats and the upper bourgeoisie. These social connections provided inspiration and material for his later novel. His first works, including the collection of stories '' Les plaisirs et les jours'', were published in the 1890s to little public success.
In 1908, Proust began work on ''À la recherche du temps perdu''. The novel consists of seven volumes totaling around 1.25 million words and featuring 2,000 characters. It explores themes of memory, art, love, High Society and the human experience through the narrator's recollections. Begun when Proust was 38, the novel was partially published in his lifetime, with the initial sections appearing in 1913. The remaining volumes were revised and published posthumously by his brother Robert based on drafts and proofs. ''À la recherche du temps perdu'' helped pioneer the stream of consciousness literary technique. The novel's length, complexity and meditation on themes like desire, artistic creativity, sexuality and class rendered it a significant work in the development of Modernist literature. The work was translated into English by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and others.
Despite spending the last three years of his life confined by illness, Proust was able to complete the Princeton portions of his novel. He died of pneumonia and pulmonary issues in 1922, aged 51 and was buried in the
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery (, , formerly , ) is the largest cemetery in Paris, France, at . With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world.
Buried at Père Lachaise are many famous figures in the ...
in Paris. Proust's sexuality and relationships with men were an open secret among his social circles, though the author himself never publicly acknowledged being homosexual.
Biography
Proust was born on 10 July 1871 at the home of his great-uncle in the Paris Borough of Auteuil (the south-western sector of the then-rustic 16th arrondissement), two months after the Treaty of Frankfurt formally ended the
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...
. His birth coincided with the beginning of the
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic (, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France durin ...
, during the violence that surrounded the suppression of the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...
, and his childhood corresponded with the consolidation of the Republic. Much of ''
In Search of Lost Time
''In Search of Lost Time'' (), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early twen ...
'' concerns the vast changes, most particularly the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the middle classes, that occurred in France during the '' fin de siècle.''
Proust's father, Adrien Proust, was a prominent French pathologist and epidemiologist, studying
cholera
Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...
in Europe and Asia. He wrote numerous articles and books on medicine and hygiene. Proust's mother, Jeanne Clémence (maiden name: Weil), was the daughter of a wealthy German–Jewish family from
Alsace
Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...
. Literate and well-read, she demonstrated a well-developed sense of humour in her letters, and her command of the
English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
was sufficient to help with her son's translations of
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...
.Tadié, J-Y. (Euan Cameron, trans.) ''Marcel Proust: A life''. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2000. Proust was raised in his father's Catholic faith. He was baptized on 5 August 1871 at the Church of Saint-Louis-d'Antin and later confirmed as a Catholic, but he never formally practised that faith. He later became an atheist and was something of a mystic.
By the age of nine, Proust had had his first serious
asthma
Asthma is a common long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wh ...
attack, and thereafter was considered a sickly child. Proust spent long holidays in the village of Illiers. This village, combined with recollections of his great-uncle's house in Auteuil, became the model for the fictional town of Combray, where some of the most important scenes of ''
In Search of Lost Time
''In Search of Lost Time'' (), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early twen ...
'' take place. (Illiers was renamed Illiers-Combray in 1971 on the occasion of the Proust centenary celebrations.)
In 1882, at the age of eleven, Proust became a pupil at the Lycée Condorcet; however, his education was disrupted by his illness. Despite this, he excelled in literature, receiving an award in his final year. Thanks to his classmates, he was able to gain access to some of the salons of the upper
bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...
, providing him with copious material for ''In Search of Lost Time''.
In spite of his poor health, Proust served a year (1889–90) in the French army, stationed at Coligny Barracks in
Orléans
Orléans (,"Orleans" (US) and The Guermantes' Way'', part three of his novel. As a young man, Proust was a
dilettante
Dilettante or dilettantes may refer to:
* Amateur
An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidactic ...
and a social climber whose aspirations as a writer were hampered by his lack of self-discipline. His reputation from this period, as a snob and an amateur, contributed to his later troubles with getting '' Swann's Way'', the first part of his large-scale novel, published in 1913. At this time, he attended the ''salons'' of Mme Straus, widow of
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', w ...
and mother of Proust's childhood friend Jacques Bizet, of Madeleine Lemaire and of Mme Arman de Caillavet, one of the models for Madame Verdurin, and mother of his friend Gaston Arman de Caillavet, with whose fiancée (Jeanne Pouquet) he was in love. It is through Mme Arman de Caillavet, he made the acquaintance of Anatole France, her lover.
Proust had a close relationship with his mother. To appease his father, who insisted that he pursue a career, Proust obtained a volunteer position at Bibliothèque Mazarine in the summer of 1896. After exerting considerable effort, he obtained a sick leave that extended for several years until he was considered to have resigned. He never worked at his job, and he did not move from his parents' apartment until after both were dead.
His life and family circle changed markedly between 1900 and 1905. In February 1903, Proust's brother, Robert Proust, married and left the family home. His father died in November of the same year. Finally, and most crushingly, Proust's beloved mother died in September 1905. She left him a considerable inheritance. His health throughout this period continued to deteriorate.
Proust spent the last three years of his life mostly confined to his bedroom of his apartment 44 rue Hamelin (in Chaillot), sleeping during the day and working at night to complete his novel. He died of
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery (, , formerly , ) is the largest cemetery in Paris, France, at . With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world.
Buried at Père Lachaise are many famous figures in the ...
in Paris.
Personal life
Proust is known to have been homosexual; his sexuality and relationships with men are often discussed by his biographers. Although his housekeeper, Céleste Albaret, denies this aspect of Proust's sexuality in her memoirs, her denial runs contrary to the statements of many of Proust's friends and contemporaries, including his fellow writer André Gide as well as his valet Ernest A. Forssgren.
Proust never openly disclosed his homosexuality, though his family and close friends either knew or suspected it. In 1897, he fought a duel with writer Jean Lorrain, who publicly questioned the nature of Proust's relationship with Proust's lover Lucien Daudet; both duellists survived. Despite Proust's public denials, his romantic relationship with composer Reynaldo Hahn and his infatuation with his chauffeur and secretary, Alfred Agostinelli, are well documented. On the night of 11 January 1918, Proust was one of the men identified by police in a raid on a male
brothel
A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...
run by Albert Le Cuziat. Proust's friend Paul Morand openly teased Proust about his visits to male prostitutes. In his journal, Morand refers to Proust, as well as Gide, as "constantly hunting, never satiated by their adventures ... eternal prowlers, tireless sexual adventurers."
The exact influence of Proust's sexuality on his writing is a topic of debate. However, ''
In Search of Lost Time
''In Search of Lost Time'' (), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early twen ...
'' discusses homosexuality at length and features several principal characters, both men and women, who are either homosexual or
bisexual
Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...
: the Baron de Charlus, Robert de Saint-Loup, Odette de Crécy, and Albertine Simonet. Homosexuality also appears as a theme in '' Les plaisirs et les jours'' and his unfinished novel, '' Jean Santeuil''.
Proust inherited much of his mother's political outlook, which was supportive of the
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic (, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France durin ...
and near the liberalcentre of French politics. In an 1892 article published in ''Le Banquet'' entitled "L'Irréligion d'État", Proust condemned extreme anti-clerical measures such as the expulsion of monks, observing that "one might just be surprised that the negation of religion should bring in its wake the same fanaticism, intolerance, and persecution as religion itself." He argued that
socialism
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
posed a greater threat to society than the Church. He was equally critical of the right, lambasting "the insanity of the conservatives," whom he deemed "as dumb and ungrateful as under
Charles X Charles X may refer to:
* Charles X of France (1757–1836)
* Charles X Gustav (1622–1660), King of Sweden
* Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon (1523–1590), recognized as Charles X of France but renounced the royal title
See also
*
* King Charle ...
," and referring to
Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X (; born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914) was head of the Catholic Church from 4 August 1903 to his death in August 1914. Pius X is known for vigorously opposing Modernism in the Catholic Church, modern ...
's obstinacy as foolish. Proust always rejected the bigoted and illiberal views harbored by many priests at the time, but believed that the most enlightened clerics could be just as progressive as the most enlightened secularists, and that both could serve the cause of "the advanced liberal Republic". He approved of the more moderate stance taken in 1906 by Aristide Briand, whom he described as "admirable".
Proust was among the earliest Dreyfusards, even attending Émile Zola's trial and proudly claiming to have been the one who asked Anatole France to sign the petition in support of Alfred Dreyfus's innocence. In 1919, when representatives of the right-wing Action Française published a manifesto upholding French colonialism and the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
as the embodiment of civilised values, Proust rejected their nationalistic and chauvinistic views in favor of a liberalpluralist vision which acknowledged
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
's cultural legacy in France.Julien Benda commended Proust in ''La Trahison des clercs'' as a writer who distinguished himself from his generation by avoiding the twin traps of nationalism and class sectarianism.
Because of his allergies and frequent asthma attacks, and the misunderstanding of the disease at the time, Proust was considered a hypochondriac by his doctors. His correspondence provides some clues on his symptoms. According to Yellowlees Douglas, Proust suffered from the vascular subtype of Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome.
Early writing
Proust was involved in writing and publishing from an early age. In addition to the literary magazines with which he was associated, and in which he published while at school (''La Revue verte'' and ''La Revue lilas''), from 1890 to 1891 he published a regular society column in the journal ''Le Mensuel''. In 1892, he was involved in founding a literary review called ''Le Banquet'' (also the French title of
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
's '' Symposium''), and throughout the next several years Proust published small pieces regularly in this journal and in the prestigious '' La Revue Blanche''.
In 1896 '' Les plaisirs et les jours'', a compendium of many of these early pieces, was published. The book included a foreword by Anatole France, drawings by Mme Lemaire in whose ''salon'' Proust was a frequent guest, and who inspired Proust's Mme Verdurin. She invited him and Reynaldo Hahn to her château de Réveillon (the model for Mme Verdurin's La Raspelière) in summer 1894, and for three weeks in 1895. Despite the contents being well received, the book sold poorly due to its high price, which was widely ridiculed. The price was due to the fact that the book was so sumptuously produced.
That year Proust also began working on a novel, which was eventually published in 1952 and titled '' Jean Santeuil'' by his posthumous editors. Many of the themes later developed in ''In Search of Lost Time'' find their first articulation in this unfinished work, including the enigma of memory and the necessity of reflection; several sections of ''In Search of Lost Time'' can be read in the first draft in ''Jean Santeuil''. The portrait of the parents in ''Jean Santeuil'' is quite harsh, in marked contrast to the adoration with which the parents are painted in Proust's masterpiece. Following the poor reception of ''Les Plaisirs et les Jours'', and internal troubles with resolving the plot, Proust gradually abandoned ''Jean Santeuil'' in 1897 and stopped work on it entirely by 1899.
Beginning in 1895 Proust spent several years reading
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...
,
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist movement of th ...
, and
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...
. Through this reading, he refined his theories of art and the role of the artist in society. Also, in '' Time Regained'' Proust's universal protagonist recalls having translated Ruskin's ''Sesame and Lilies''. The artist's responsibility is to confront the appearance of nature, deduce its essence and retell or explain that essence in the work of art. Ruskin's view of artistic production was central to this conception, and Ruskin's work was so important to Proust that he claimed to know "by heart" several of Ruskin's books, including '' The Seven Lamps of Architecture'', ''The Bible of Amiens'', and ''Praeterita''.
Proust set out to translate two of Ruskin's works into French, but was hampered by an imperfect command of English. To compensate for this he made his translations a group affair: sketched out by his mother, the drafts were first revised by Proust, then by Marie Nordlinger, the English cousin of his friend and sometime loverReynaldo Hahn, then finally polished by Proust. Questioned about his method by an editor, Proust responded, "I don't claim to know English; I claim to know Ruskin". ''The Bible of Amiens'', with Proust's extended introduction, was published in French in 1904. Both the translation and the introduction were well-reviewed; Henri Bergson called Proust's introduction "an important contribution to the psychology of Ruskin", and had similar praise for the translation. At the time of this publication, Proust was already translating Ruskin's ''Sesame and Lilies'', which he completed in June 1905, just before his mother's death, and published in 1906. Literary historians and critics have ascertained that, apart from Ruskin, Proust's chief literary influences included Saint-Simon, Montaigne, Stendhal, Flaubert, George Eliot,
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian literature, Russian and world literature, and many of his works are consider ...
, and
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...
.
In Proust’s 1904 article "La mort des cathédrales" (The Death of Cathedrals) published in ''
Le Figaro
() is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It was named after Figaro, a character in several plays by polymath Pierre Beaumarchais, Beaumarchais (1732–1799): ''Le Barbier de Séville'', ''The Guilty Mother, La Mère coupable'', ...
'', Proust called Gothic cathedrals “probably the highest, and unquestionably the most original expression of French genius”.
1908 was an important year for Proust's development as a writer. During the first part of the year he published in various journals pastiches of other writers. These exercises in imitation may have allowed Proust to solidify his own style. In addition, in the spring and summer of the year Proust began work on several different fragments of writing that would later coalesce under the working title of '' Contre Sainte-Beuve''. Proust described his efforts in a letter to a friend: "I have in progress: a study on the nobility, a Parisian novel, an essay on Sainte-Beuve and Flaubert, an essay on women, an essay on pederasty (not easy to publish), a study on stained-glass windows, a study on tombstones, a study on the novel".
From these disparate fragments Proust began to shape a novel on which he worked continually during this period. The rough outline of the work centred on a first-person narrator, unable to sleep, who during the night remembers waiting as a child for his mother to come to him in the morning. The novel was to have ended with a critical examination of Sainte-Beuve and a refutation of his theory that biography was the most important tool for understanding an artist's work. Present in the unfinished manuscript notebooks are many elements that correspond to parts of the ''Recherche'', in particular, to the "Combray" and "Swann in Love" sections of Volume 1, and to the final section of Volume 7. Trouble with finding a publisher, as well as a gradually changing conception of his novel, led Proust to shift work to a substantially different project that still contained many of the same themes and elements. By 1910 he was at work on ''À la recherche du temps perdu''.
''In Search of Lost Time''
Begun in 1909, when Proust was 38 years old, ''À la recherche du temps perdu'' consists of seven volumes totaling around 3,200 pages (about 4,300 in The Modern Library's translation) and featuring more than 2,000 characters. Graham Greene called Proust the "greatest novelist of the twentieth century, just as Tolstoy was of the nineteenth" and W. Somerset Maugham called the novel the "greatest fiction to date". André Gide was initially not so taken with his work. The first volume was refused by the publisher Gallimard on Gide's advice. He later wrote to Proust apologizing for his part in the refusal and calling it one of the most serious mistakes of his life. Finally, the book was published at the author's expense by Grasset and Proust paid critics to speak favorably about it.« Marcel Proust paid for reviews praising his work to go into newspapers »,
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse (; AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.
With 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities, AFP has an editorial presence in 260 c ...
in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', 28 septembre 2017 online .
Proust died before he was able to complete his revision of the drafts and proofs of the final volumes, the last three of which were published posthumously and edited by his brother
Robert
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, prais ...
. The book was translated into English by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, appearing under the title ''Remembrance of Things Past'' between 1922 and 1931. Scott Moncrieff translated volumes one through six of the seven volumes, dying before completing the last. This last volume was rendered by other translators at different times. When Scott Moncrieff's translation was later revised (first by Terence Kilmartin, then by D. J. Enright) the title of the novel was changed to the more literal ''In Search of Lost Time''.
In 1995, Penguin undertook a fresh translation of the book by editor Christopher Prendergast and seven translators in three countries, based on the latest, most complete and authoritative French text. Its six volumes, comprising Proust's seven, were published in Britain under the Allen Lane imprint in 2002.
In 2023, Oxford University Press started releasing a new translation of the book by editors Brian Nelson and Adam Watt and five other translators. It will be published in seven volumes under the Oxford World's Classics imprint.
Bibliography
Novels
* ''
In Search of Lost Time
''In Search of Lost Time'' (), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early twen ...
'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu'' published in seven volumes, previously translated as ''Remembrance of Things Past'') (1913–1927)
# ''Swann's Way'' (''Du côté de chez Swann'', sometimes translated as ''The Way by Swann's'') (1913)
# ''In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower'' (''À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs'', also translated as ''Within a Budding Grove'') (1919)
# ''The Guermantes Way'' (''Le Côté de Guermantes'' originally published in two volumes) (1920–1921)
# ''Sodom and Gomorrah'' (''Sodome et Gomorrhe'' originally published in two volumes, sometimes translated as ''Cities of the Plain'') (1921–1922)
# ''The Prisoner'' (''La Prisonnière'', also translated as ''The Captive'') (1923)
# ''The Fugitive'' (''Albertine disparue'', also titled ''La Fugitive'', sometimes translated as ''The Sweet Cheat Gone'' or ''Albertine Gone'') (1925)
# ''Time Regained'' (''Le Temps retrouvé'', also translated as ''Finding Time Again'' and ''The Past Recaptured'') translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (1927)
* '' Jean Santeuil'' (1896–1900, unfinished novel in three volumes published posthumously – 1952)
* ''La Bible d'Amiens'' (translation of ''The Bible of Amiens'') (1896)
* ''Sésame et les lys: des trésors des rois, des jardins des reines'' (translation of ''Sesame and Lilies'') (1906)
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
production set in 1916 about Proust
* '' Albertine'', a novel based on a character in ''À la recherche du temps perdu'' by Jacqueline Rose (London, 2001)
* '' Céleste'', a German film dramatising part of Proust's life, seen from the viewpoint of his housekeeper Céleste Albaret
* Involuntary memory
* ''Le Temps Retrouvé, d'après l'œuvre de Marcel Proust'' ('' Time Regained''), film by director Raúl Ruiz, 1999
* ''Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen'', a novel by Kate Taylor that includes a fictional diary written by Proust's mother
* ''
Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French language, French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Pas ...
'', an essay by
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
* Aciman, André (2004), ''The Proust Project''. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
* Adams, William Howard; Paul Nadar (photo.), ''A Proust Souvenir''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1984)
* Adorno, Theodor (1967), ''Prisms''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press
* Adorno, Theodor, "Short Commentaries on Proust," Notes to Literature, trans. S. Weber-Nicholsen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).
* Albaret, Céleste ( Barbara Bray, trans.) (2003), ''Monsieur Proust''. New York: New York Review Books
* Beckett, Samuel, ''Proust'', London: Calder
* Benjamin, Walter, "The Image of Proust," Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1969); pp. 201–215.
* Bernard, Anne-Marie (2002), ''The World of Proust, as seen by Paul Nadar''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press
* Bersani, Leo, ''Marcel Proust: The Fictions of Life and of Art'' (2013), Oxford: Oxford U. Press
* Bowie, Malcolm, ''Proust Among the Stars'', London: Harper Collins
* Capetanakis, Demetrios, "A Lecture on Proust", in ''Demetrios Capetanakis A Greek Poet in England'' (1947)
* Carter, William C. (2002), ''Marcel Proust: A Life''. New Haven: Yale University Press
* Carter, William C. (2006), ''Proust in Love''. New Haven: Yale University Press
* Chardin, Philippe (2006), ''Proust ou le bonheur du petit personnage qui compare''. Paris: Honoré Champion
* Chardin, Philippe ''et alii'' (2010), ''Originalités proustiennes''. Paris: Kimé
* Compagnon, Antoine, ''Proust Between Two Centuries,'' Columbia U. Press
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The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...