In Search of Lost Time
11 primary works • 12 total works
Book 1
The first volume of Marcel Proust’s monumental masterpiece—in the classic Scott Moncrieff–Kilmartin translation—is not only a perfect introduction to a literary landmark, it also stands on its own as one of the most sensitive renderings of childhood in fiction and a brilliant meditation on the recreation of the past through art and memory.
Swann’s Way is the most frequently read part of Proust’s epic novel, Remembrance of Things Past (also known as In Search of Lost Time). It introduces subjects that resonate throughout the entire work, including the narrator’s love for Swann’s daughter Gilberte, Swann’s jealous passion for Odette, and the rise of the nouveaux-riches Verdurins. Proust’s narrator vividly recalls his childhood in Paris and Combray, most famously in a fraught evocation of his mother’s good-night kiss and in the iconic scene where the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea brings back a flood of memory.
Book 1
Book 2
Book 2
The second volume of In Search of Lost Time, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century
James Grieve's acclaimed new translation of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower will introduce a new century of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. As the second volume in the superb edition of In Search of Lost Time—the first completely new translation of Proust's novel since the 1920s—it brings us a more comic and lucid prose than English readers have previously been able to enjoy. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is Proust's spectacular dissection of male and female adolescence, charged with the narrator's memories of Paris and the Normandy seaside. At the heart of the story lie his relationships with his grandmother and with the Swann family.
As a meditation on different forms of love, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower has no equal. Here, Proust introduces some of his greatest comic inventions, from the magnificently dull Monsieur de Norpois to the enchanting Robert de Saint-Loup. It is memorable as well for the first appearance of the two figures who for better or worse are to dominate the narrator's life—the Baron de Charlus and the mysterious Albertine.
Book 3
Mark Treharne's acclaimed new translation of The Guermantes Way will introduce a new generation of American readers to the literary richness of Marcel Proust. The third volume in Penguin Classics' superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time—the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s—brings us a more comic and lucid prose than English readers have previously been able to enjoy.
After the relative intimacy of the first two volumes of In Search of Lost Time, The Guermantes Way opens up a vast, dazzling landscape of fashionable Parisian life in the late nineteenth century, as the narrator enters the brilliant, shallow world of the literary and aristocratic salons. Both a salute to and a devastating satire of a time, place, and culture, The Guermantes Way defines the great tradition of novels that follow the initiation of a young man into the ways of the world.
Book 4
John Sturrock's acclaimed new translation of Sodom and Gomorrah will introduce a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Proust. The fourth volume in this superb edition of In Search of Lost Time—the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s—brings us a more comic and lucid prose than English readers have previously been able to enjoy.
Sodom and Gomorrah takes up the theme of homosexual love, male and female, and dwells on how destructive sexual jealousy can be for those who suffer it. Proust’s novel is also an unforgiving analysis of both the decadent high society of Paris and the rise of a philistine bourgeoisie that is on the way to supplanting it. Characters who had lesser roles in earlier volumes now reappear in a different light and take center stage, notably Albertine, with whom the narrator believes he is in love, and the insanely haughty Baron de Charlus.
Book 4
Book 5
Book 5
A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper
Carol Clark's acclaimed translation of The Prisoner introduces a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. The fifth volume in Penguin Classics' superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time--the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s--brings us a more comic and lucid prose than readers of English have previously been able to enjoy.
The titular "prisoner" is Albertine, the tall, dark orphan with whom Marcel had fallen in love at the end of Sodom and Gomorrah (volume 4). Albertine has moved in with Marcel in his family's apartment in Paris, where the pair have a seemingly limitless supply of money and are chaperoned only by Marcel's judgmental family servant, Françoise. Marcel, who worries obsessively about Albertine's relationships with other women, grows more and more irrational in his attempts to control her, keeping her prisoner in his apartment and buying her couture gowns, furs, and jewelry in an attempt to protect her from herself and from the outside world and. And yet in addition to being a tragedy of possessive love, The Prisoner is also a comedy of human folly and misunderstanding, linked to the other volumes of the larger novel through its themes of class differences, art, irrationality, social snobbery, and, of course, time and memory.
Book 6
"The greatest literary work of the twentieth century." --The New York Times
A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition
Peter Collier's acclaimed translation of The Fugitive introduces a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. The sixth and penultimate volume in Penguin Classics' superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time--the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s--brings us a more comic and lucid prose than readers of English have previously been able to enjoy.
"Miss Albertine has left!" So begins The Fugitive, the second part of what is often referred to as "the Albertine cycle," or books five and six of In Search of Lost Time. As Marcel struggles to endure Albertine's departure and vanquish his loss, he ends up in an anguished search for the essential truth of the enigmatic fugitive, whose love affairs with other women provoke in him jealousy and a new understanding of sexuality. Eventually, he lets go of Albertine and begins to find himself, discovering his own long-lost inner sources of creativity.
Book 7
“The greatest literary work of the twentieth century.” —The New York Times
A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper
Ian Patterson’s acclaimed new translation of Finding Time Again introduces a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. The seventh and final volume in Penguin Classics' superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time—the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s—brings us a more comic and lucid prose than readers of English have previously been able to enjoy.
In Finding Time Again, Marcel discovers his world destroyed by war and those he knew transformed by the march of time. An exquisite picture of France in the throes of the First World War, and containing, in the “Bal des têtes” sequence, one of Proust’s most devastating set pieces, Finding Time Again triumphantly describes the paradox of facing mortality yet overcoming it through the act of writing. As Marcel rediscovers his vocation, he realizes that he can live on by writing down the story of his own memories and of his quest to recapture the past.
For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME is one of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is the Penguin Proust that makes Proust accessible to a new generation.
Each book is translated by a different, superb translator working under the general editorship of Professor Christopher Prendergast, University of Cambridge.