Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. This book deals with his life and work.
'And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray ... my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea'
At once intimate and epic, Proust's transformative novel follows one man's search for meaning in his life, from childhood through love affairs, jealousy, desire and loss to the discovery of his vocation - and salvation - in art. Scott Moncrieff's masterly early-twentieth-century translation of Remembrance of Things Past captures both Proust's grandeur and lyricism, and is now regarded as an immortal classic in its own right. This volume contains Swann's Way and Within a Budding Grove, reflecting on the narrator's impressions of his idyllic childhood, and his first meeting with the mysterious Albertine.
'Scott Moncrieff's volumes belong to that special category of translations which are themselves literary masterpieces ... his book is one of those translations, such as the Authorized Version of the Bible itself, which can never be displaced' A. N. Wilson
Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff