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.

"As close to being a definitive version of the great novel as we are likely to get" Scotsman "Sublime... In Proust's interweaving of romantic delusions, the glory of the descriptions, as the narrator strives to recapture the past, redeems everyone" -- John Updike "The way he replicates the workings of the mind changed the art of novel-writing forever...his style is extraordinary, enveloping, captivating" Guardian "Proust isn't just the most profound of novelists, but the most entertaining, too. No reader ever forgets his most killingly funny scenes... Proust sinks deepest in readers because the book is so exhaustively analytical, so ceaselessly truthful. Not the least of it is the book's heavenly length, so that it inevitably takes over your life for a long stretch... the experience of reading it becomes, in itself, an unforgettable thing" Independent "Surely the greatest novelist of the 20th century" Sunday Telegraph

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.

"As close to being a definitive version of the great novel as we are likely to get" Scotsman "Sublime... In Proust's interweaving of romantic delusions, the glory of the descriptions, as the narrator strives to recapture the past, redeems everyone" -- John Updike "The way he replicates the workings of the mind changed the art of novel-writing forever...his style is extraordinary, enveloping, captivating" Guardian "Proust isn't just the most profound of novelists, but the most entertaining, too. No reader ever forgets his most killingly funny scenes... Proust sinks deepest in readers because the book is so exhaustively analytical, so ceaselessly truthful. Not the least of it is the book's heavenly length, so that it inevitably takes over your life for a long stretch... the experience of reading it becomes, in itself, an unforgettable thing" Independent "Surely the greatest novelist of the 20th century" Sunday Telegraph

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.

"As close to being a definitive version of the great novel as we are likely to get" Scotsman "Sublime... In Proust's interweaving of romantic delusions, the glory of the descriptions, as the narrator strives to recapture the past, redeems everyone" -- John Updike "The way he replicates the workings of the mind changed the art of novel-writing forever...his style is extraordinary, enveloping, captivating" Guardian "Proust isn't just the most profound of novelists, but the most entertaining, too. No reader ever forgets his most killingly funny scenes... Proust sinks deepest in readers because the book is so exhaustively analytical, so ceaselessly truthful. Not the least of it is the book's heavenly length, so that it inevitably takes over your life for a long stretch... the experience of reading it becomes, in itself, an unforgettable thing" Independent "Surely the greatest novelist of the 20th century" Sunday Telegraph