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What book to read, based on your favourite Christmas song

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More than cake: unravelling the mysteries of Proust’s madeleine

The original translation of Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

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Extracts

Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 2

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

For the reader wishing to tackle Proust your guide must be C K Scott Moncrieff ... There are some who believe his headily perfumed translation of À la recherche du temps perdu conjures Belle Époque France more vividly even than the original

I was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation

Marcel Proust (Author) Proust was born in Auteuil, France in 1871. He began writing his masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu, in 1909, and worked on it until his death in 1922, following several years of poor health during which he had been confined to his bedroom. C. K. Scott Moncrieff (Translator) Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff was born in Scotland in 1889 and served on the Western Front in the First World War, where he was seriously injured at the Battle of Arras. In 1922, he started work on his famous translation of Proust's novel, taking his English title from Shakespeare's Sonnet 30. He was still translating the novel at the time of his death in Rome in 1930.

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. A profound reflection on art, time, memory, self and loss, it is often viewed as the definitive modern novel, and C. K. Scott Moncrieff's famous translation from the 1920s is now regarded as a classic in its own right.

Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 1

Marcel Proust (Author) 
Proust was born in Auteuil, France in 1871. He began writing his masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu, in 1909, and worked on it until his death in 1922, following several years of poor health during which he had been confined to his bedroom. 
 
C. K. Scott Moncrieff (Translator) 
Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff was born in Scotland in 1889 and served on the Western Front in the First World War, where he was seriously injured at the Battle of Arras. In 1922, he started work on his famous translation of Proust's novel, taking his English title from Shakespeare's Sonnet 30. He was still translating the novel at the time of his death in Rome in 1930.

Vintage Classics French Series

Swann's Way

My advice is to plunge straight into Volume 1, Swann's Way there are many who swear the experience has permanently enriched their lives

One of the cornerstones of the Western literary canon

Surely the greatest novelist of the 20th century

As close to being a definitive English version of the great novel as we are likely to get

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

Marcel Proust (Author) 
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 1899, however, his suffering from chronic asthma, the death of his parents and his growing disillusionment 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 work. 
 
D J Enright (Translator) 
Born in 1920, educated at Leamington College and Downing College, Cambridge, D. J. Enright spent over twenty years teaching English at universities in Egypt, Japan, Berlin, Thailand, and Singapore. He returned to London in 1970 and later became a director of London publishers Chatto & Windus. First and foremost a poet, he published many collections in over fifty years, including Collected Poems: 1948-98 (1998), and translations from Japanese and German verse. He wrote novels for both adults and children, and revised with Madeleine Enright the English translation of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1992), while his enormous output of non-fiction includes his Memoirs of a Mendicant Professor (1969), a number of critical works, and several anthologies, among them The Oxford Book of Death (1983) and The Faber Book of Fevers and Frets (1989). Observations on life (high and low), literature, morals and manners, human or animal, are recorded in The Way of the Cat (1992), and two companion volumes to Injury Time - Interplay: A Kind of Commonplace Book (1995) and Play Resumed: A Journal (1999). D. J. Enright received the Cholmondeley Award in 1974; he was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1981 and appointed OBE in 1991. Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1961, he was made Companion of Literature by the Society in 1998, an honour granted to no more than ten living writers at any one time. He died on the last day of 2002, after battling vigorously against cancer for seven years.

The definitive translation of a truly great French novel - Proust's beautiful, atmospheric story of memory and loss. 
 
This is the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, one of the greatest French novels of the twentieth century. Travelling back through time, the narrator tells the story of events long since past - his childhood happiness and sadness, and memories brought famously back to life by the taste of a madeleine. His family's friend and neighbour, the aristocratic Swann, weaves through the tale. We learn of Swann's passionate love affair with Odette, a jealous love that creates a model for the narrator's own relationships. All Proust's great themes begin here: time and memory, love and loss, art and the artistic vocation. 
 
THE ACCLAIMED FULLY REVISED EDITION OF THE SCOTT MONCRIEFF AND KILMARTIN TRANSLATION 
 
The best translation available: 'A really major, significant achievement, and one that you should put on your Christmas list immediately' Guardian 
 
VINTAGE FRENCH CLASSICS - six masterpieces of French fiction in collectable editions.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

In Search of Lost Time

A landmark BBC radio production of Proust's epic masterpiece, starring Derek Jacobi as the narrator, Marcel 
 
'Beautiful' - Charlotte Runcie, The Telegraph 
 
Waking in the small hours, Marcel Proust embarks on a retrospective journey, endeavouring to capture the elusive moments that shaped his life. A sip of tea and the taste of a madeleine prompt further recollections, and the floodgates of memory open, pouring forth a torrent of vivid reminiscences. 
 
Beginning with his childhood summers in Combray, and the long nights waiting for his mother to come and kiss him goodnight, he looks back on the places and people who have had a significant, lasting impact on him. The tragic story of his neighbour Charles Swann's obsessive love for the seductive Odette brings to mind his own youthful experiences and amours in Paris, Balbec and Venice; his mistress, Albertine; his closest companion, Robert; his predatory acquaintance the Baron de Charlus; and his many high-society friends and associates. 
 
Time, and the Great War, take their toll on Marcel and his circle, rendering the world he knows unrecognizable. But as he attempts to reconcile his past with his present, an encounter with an old flame sparks an epiphany, enabling him to finally become the writer he has always yearned to be... 
 
Adapted from the French by acclaimed playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, this superb dramatisation of Proust's allegorical reflection on time, memory, art and love boasts an all-star cast including Derek Jacobi, Frances Barber, Paterson Joseph, Simon Russell Beale, Hattie Morahan and Robert Glenister. 
 
 
Production credits 
Translated and adapted from the French by Timberlake Wertenbaker 
Produced and directed by Celia de Wolff 
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling 
Recording and Sound Design: David Chilton and Lucinda Mason Brown 
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare 
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 
 
Cast 
Marcel (narrator) - Derek Jacobi 
Young Marcel - Isaac Watts 
Maman - Sylvestra le Touzel 
Papa - Oliver Cotton 
Grand-mère - Joanna David 
Françoise - Susan Brown 
Madame Verdurin - Frances Barber 
Monsieur Verdurin - Jeff Rawle 
Doctor Cottard - Lloyd Hutchinson 
Tante Leonie/Marquise de Sainte Euverte/Madame de Sazerat - Pamela Miles 
Mademoiselle Vinteuil/Prostitute/Madame d'Arpajon - Charlotte Blandford 
Mademoiselle Vinteuil's friend/Another prostitute - Phoebe Marshall 
Odette - Bessie Carter 
Pianist/Lift boy/Servant - Daniel Whitlam 
Charles Swann - Paterson Joseph 
Remi/Ski/Man at desk - Nicholas Armfield 
Elstir Biche/Monsieur de Breaute/Butler - Daniel Flynn 
Madame de Gallardon/Queen of Naples - Christine Kavanagh 
Brichot - Hugh Ross 
Forcheville/Boss/Bloch - Nicholas Gleaves 
Saniette/Older man - Roger Watkins 
Madame Cottard/Princess de Parme/Madame de Cambremer/Woman guest - Emma Amos 
Young Gilberte - Mary Glen 
Young Marcel - Isaac Watts 
Marcel - Blake Ritson 
Gilberte - Emma Mackey 
Monsieur de Norpois/De Boulbon/Servant/Jupien/Marquis de Cambremer - Ben Crowe 
Robert de Saint Loup - Kyle Soller 
Basin, Duke of Guermantes - Robert Glenister 
Oriane, Duchess of Guermantes - Fenella Woolgar 
Baron de Charlus - Simon Russell Beale 
Albertine - Hattie Morahan 
Morel - Tom Glenister 
Andree - Georgina Beedle 
Madame de Villeparisis - Serena Evans 
Servant/Concierge/Manager/Doctor - Finlay Paul 
Other voices - Nicholas Armfield, Phoebe Marshall 
Soldiers - Daniel Whitlam, Nicholas Armfield, Toheeb Jimoh, Tom Glenister 
Telephone operator - Alice Hoskyns 
Young men - Toheeb Jimoh, Finlay Paul, Daniel Whitlam, Sam Rawle 
Other parts played by members of the company 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 24-26 August 2019 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

A landmark BBC radio production of Proust's epic masterpiece, starring Derek Jacobi as the narrator, Marcel 
 
'Beautiful' - Charlotte Runcie, The Telegraph 
 
Waking in the small hours, Marcel Proust embarks on a retrospective journey, endeavouring to capture the elusive moments that shaped his life. A sip of tea and the taste of a madeleine prompt further recollections, and the floodgates of memory open, pouring forth a torrent of vivid reminiscences. 
 
Beginning with his childhood summers in Combray, and the long nights waiting for his mother to come and kiss him goodnight, he looks back on the places and people who have had a significant, lasting impact on him. The tragic story of his neighbour Charles Swann's obsessive love for the seductive Odette brings to mind his own youthful experiences and amours in Paris, Balbec and Venice; his mistress, Albertine; his closest companion, Robert; his predatory acquaintance the Baron de Charlus; and his many high-society friends and associates. 
 
Time, and the Great War, take their toll on Marcel and his circle, rendering the world he knows unrecognizable. But as he attempts to reconcile his past with his present, an encounter with an old flame sparks an epiphany, enabling him to finally become the writer he has always yearned to be... 
 
Adapted from the French by acclaimed playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, this superb dramatisation of Proust's allegorical reflection on time, memory, art and love boasts an all-star cast including Derek Jacobi, Frances Barber, Paterson Joseph, Simon Russell Beale, Hattie Morahan and Robert Glenister. 
 
 
Production credits 
Translated and adapted from the French by Timberlake Wertenbaker 
Produced and directed by Celia de Wolff 
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling 
Recording and Sound Design: David Chilton and Lucinda Mason Brown 
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare 
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 
 
Cast 
Marcel (narrator) - Derek Jacobi 
Young Marcel - Isaac Watts 
Maman - Sylvestra le Touzel 
Papa - Oliver Cotton 
Grand-mère - Joanna David 
Françoise - Susan Brown 
Madame Verdurin - Frances Barber 
Monsieur Verdurin - Jeff Rawle 
Doctor Cottard - Lloyd Hutchinson 
Tante Leonie/Marquise de Sainte Euverte/Madame de Sazerat - Pamela Miles 
Mademoiselle Vinteuil/Prostitute/Madame d'Arpajon - Charlotte Blandford 
Mademoiselle Vinteuil's friend/Another prostitute - Phoebe Marshall 
Odette - Bessie Carter 
Pianist/Lift boy/Servant - Daniel Whitlam 
Charles Swann - Paterson Joseph 
Remi/Ski/Man at desk - Nicholas Armfield 
Elstir Biche/Monsieur de Breaute/Butler - Daniel Flynn 
Madame de Gallardon/Queen of Naples - Christine Kavanagh 
Brichot - Hugh Ross 
Forcheville/Boss/Bloch - Nicholas Gleaves 
Saniette/Older man - Roger Watkins 
Madame Cottard/Princess de Parme/Madame de Cambremer/Woman guest - Emma Amos 
Young Gilberte - Mary Glen 
Young Marcel - Isaac Watts 
Marcel - Blake Ritson 
Gilberte - Emma Mackey 
Monsieur de Norpois/De Boulbon/Servant/Jupien/Marquis de Cambremer - Ben Crowe 
Robert de Saint Loup - Kyle Soller 
Basin, Duke of Guermantes - Robert Glenister 
Oriane, Duchess of Guermantes - Fenella Woolgar 
Baron de Charlus - Simon Russell Beale 
Albertine - Hattie Morahan 
Morel - Tom Glenister 
Andree - Georgina Beedle 
Madame de Villeparisis - Serena Evans 
Servant/Concierge/Manager/Doctor - Finlay Paul 
Other voices - Nicholas Armfield, Phoebe Marshall 
Soldiers - Daniel Whitlam, Nicholas Armfield, Toheeb Jimoh, Tom Glenister 
Telephone operator - Alice Hoskyns 
Young men - Toheeb Jimoh, Finlay Paul, Daniel Whitlam, Sam Rawle 
Other parts played by members of the company 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 24-26 August 2019 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Vintage Minis

Jealousy

Vintage Minis bring you the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human – from birth to death and everything in between

Proust sinks deepest in readers because the book is so exhaustively analytical, so ceaselessly truthful... The experience of reading [the book] becomes, in itself, an unforgettable thing

Imagine our joy when Vintage announced that it is publishing a collection of easily digestible books from the world’s most celebrated writers on the experiences that make us human… They look good and read well. That’s win/win in our book.

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 1899, however, his suffering from chronic asthma, the death of his parents and his growing disillusionment 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 work.

Can we truly know the one we love? In this painfully candid book Marcel Proust looks straight into the green eye of every lover’s jealous struggle. He broods on why we are driven to try possess one another, how jealousy can outlive death, and whether we can ever reclaim those careless days of first love. There is no greater chronicler of jealousy’s darkest fears and destructive suspicions than Proust. 
 
Selected from the book In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Desire by Haruki Murakami 
Eating by Nigella Lawson 
Home by Salman Rushdie 
Babies by Anne Enright

A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

The Collected Poems

As a young man, Proust wrote both poetry and prose. Even after he embarked on his masterful In Search of Lost Time at the age of thirty-eight, he never stopped writing poetry. His verse is often playful, filled with affection and satire, and is peppered with witty barbs at friends and people in his social circle of aristocrats, writers, musicians, and courtesans. 
 
Few of the poems collected here under the editorship of Harold Augenbraum, founder of the Proust Society of America, have ever been published in book form or translated into English until now. In this dual-language edition of new translations, Augenbraum has brought together nineteen renowned poets and poetry translators to bring Proust's exuberant verse back to life. 
 
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is generally viewed as the greatest French novelist and perhaps the greatest European novelist of the 20th century. He lived much of his later life as a reclusive semi-invalid in a sound-proofed flat in Paris, giving himself over entirely to writing In Search of Lost Time.

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is generally viewed as the greatest French novelist and perhaps the greatest European novelist of the 20th century. He lived much of his later life as a reclusive semi-invalid in a sound-proofed flat in Paris, giving himself over entirely to writing In Search of Lost Time.

Marcel Proust

Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 3

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