The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel '' In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous ...

, and often used by modern interviewers. Proust answered the questionnaire in a confession album—a form of

parlor game A parlour or parlor game is a group game played indoors using speech (from French Parler). They were often played in a parlour. These games were extremely popular among the upper and middle classes in the United Kingdom and in the United States d ...

popular among Victorians. The album belonged to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future French President

Félix Faure Félix François Faure (; 30 January 1841 – 16 February 1899) was the President of France from 1895 until his death in 1899. A native of Paris, he worked as a tanner in his younger years. Faure became a member of the Chamber of Deputies for ...

, titled "An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc." The album was found in 1924 by Faure's son, and published in the French literary journal ''Les Cahiers du Mois''. It was auctioned on May 27, 2003 for the sum of €102,000 ($113,609.46USD). Other historical figures who have answered confession albums are

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

, Martin Boucher and Enzo Kehl. The French book talk show host Bernard Pivot used a similar questionnaire at the end of every episode of his show '' Apostrophes''. Inspired by Bernard Pivot, James Lipton, the host of the TV program ''

Inside the Actors Studio ''Inside the Actors Studio'' is an American talk show that airs on Ovation. The series premiered in 1994 on Bravo where it aired for 22 seasons and was hosted by James Lipton from its premiere until 2018. It is taped at the Michael Schimmel C ...

'', used a similar questionnaire. Lipton had often incorrectly characterized the questionnaire itself as an invention of Pivot. A similar questionnaire is regularly seen on the back page of ''

Vanity Fair Vanity Fair may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Literature * Vanity Fair, a location in '' The Pilgrim's Progress'' (1678), by John Bunyan * ''Vanity Fair'' (novel), 1848, by William Makepeace Thackeray * ''Vanity Fair'' (magazines), the ...

'' magazine, answered by various

celebrities Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group as a result of the attention given to them by mass media. An individual may attain a celebrity status from having great wealth, their participation in sports ...

. In October 2009, ''Vanity Fair'' launched an interactive version of the questionnaire, that compares individual answers to those of various luminaries.Carter, Graydon, and Robert Risko. 2009. Vanity Fair's Proust questionnaire: 101 luminaries ponder love, death, happiness, and the meaning of life. mmaus, Pa. Rodale. Another version of the questionnaire, as answered by various Canadian authors, is a regular feature on the radio program '' The Next Chapter''.

The questionnaire

There are two surviving sets of answers to the confession album questions by Proust: the first, from 1885 or 1886, is to an English confessions album, although his answers are in French. The second, from 1891 or 1892, is from a French album, ''Les confidences de salon'' ("Drawing room confessions"), which contains translations of the original questions, lacking some that were in the English version and adding others.

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The questionnaire

Notes

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