In Search of Lost Time
In Search of Lost Time (French: À la recherche du temps perdu), first translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past, is a novel by the French writer Marcel Proust. It was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.
Structure
| Vol. | French titles | Published | English titles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Du côté de chez Swann | 1913 | Swann's Way The Way by Swann's |
| 2 | À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs | 1919 | Within a Budding Grove In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower |
| 3 | Le Côté de Guermantes (published in two volumes) |
1920/21 | The Guermantes Way |
| 4 | Sodome et Gomorrhe (published in two volumes) |
1921/22 | Cities of the Plain Sodom and Gomorrah |
| 5 | La Prisonnière | 1923 | The Captive The Prisoner |
| 6 | La Fugitive Albertine disparue |
1925 | The Fugitive The Sweet Cheat Gone Albertine Gone |
| 7 | Le Temps retrouvé | 1927 | The Past Recaptured Time Regained Finding Time Again |
Plot summary
Marcel reflects upon a number of events that have taken place in his life. He remembers the Dreyfus Affair, the First World War, and his relationship with a girl called Albertine.
In Search Of Lost Time Media
NRF edition of Du côté de chez Swann, 1917
1923 edition of La Prisonnière. It is labelled as "Tome VI" as Sodom et Gomorrhe was originally published in two volumes.
Illiers, the country town overlooked by a church steeple where Proust spent time as a child and which he described as "Combray" in the novel. The town adopted the name Illiers-Combray in homage.
Portrait of Mme. Geneviève Bizet, née Geneviève Halévy, by Jules-Élie Delaunay, in Musée d'Orsay (1878). She served as partial inspiration for the character of Odette.
The beach at Cabourg, a seaside resort that was the model for Balbec in the novel
Élisabeth, Countess Greffulhe (1905), by Philip de László, who served as the model for the character of the Duchesse de Guermantes
The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin, 1852. The fourth volume opens with a discussion of the inhabitants of the two Biblical "cities of the plain".
Léontine Lippmann (1844–1910), better known by her married name of Madame Arman or Madame Arman de Caillavet, was the model for Proust's Madame Verdurin.
Robert de Montesquiou, the main inspiration for Baron de Charlus in À la recherche du temps perdu
Main characters of the novel. Blue lines denote acquaintances and pink lines love interests.
