In Search of Lost Time Series

The long-awaited final volume in the acclaimed Penguin translation of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time—one of the world’s most beloved works of literature

“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.

The long-awaited penultimate volume–“the very summit of Proust’s art” (Slate)–in the acclaimed Penguin translation of Marcel Proust’s greatest work, in time for the 150th anniversary of his birth

“The greatest literary work of the twentieth century.” –The New York Times

A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper

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.

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.

The long-awaited fifth volume–representing “the very summit of Proust’s art” (Slate)–in the acclaimed Penguin translation of “the greatest literary work of the twentieth century” (The New York Times)

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.

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.

The fourth volume of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century

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.

The third volume of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century

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.

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. 

The first volume of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, in Lydia Davis’s award-winning translation

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics brings Proust’s masterpiece to new audiences throughout the world, beginning with Lydia Davis’s internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swann’s Way.
Swann’s Way is one of the preeminent novels of childhood: a sensitive boy’s impressions of his family and neighbors, all brought dazzlingly back to life years later by the taste of a madeleine. It also enfolds the short novel “Swann in Love,” an incomparable study of sexual jealousy that becomes a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure of In Search of Lost Time. The first volume of the work that established Proust as one of the finest voices of the modern age—satirical, skeptical, confiding, and endlessly varied in his response to the human condition—Swann’s Way also stands on its own as a perfect rendering of a life in art, of the past recreated through memory.