Marcel Proust: in Pictures & Documents - Hardcover

Patricia Monte-Proust; Mireille Naturel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3283012180 ISBN 13: 9783283012182

Publisher: Edition Olms Ag, 2013

Synopsis

For a long time I used to go to bed early: possibly the most famous opening line in the French language and the first words of a masterly work whose author himself would even compare to a cathedral. In Search of Lost Time, the work of a man: Marcel Proust, the man of the work. Never before had a writer taken introspection and the workings of memory to such a level, and in the course of this prodigious quest brought a quasi-mystical aura to the taste of the humble Madeleine for generations of readers around the world. A work of keys, famously obscure -- that famous Proustian phrase -- and yet overflowing with fantasies, "In Search of Lost Time" gives us an invitation to penetrate the mysteries and secrets of its author. He is often described as a nervous, painfully shy individual, hiding away in his cork-lined bedroom; but between his fantasies and his real life experiences, who was the real Marcel Proust? And what can we learn from the famous Questionnaire to which he replied and which now carries his name? Containing many photographs, manuscripts and other unique documents, some of them never before published, this book -- the first of its kind about this literary genius -- celebrates the life and an era that have become timeless through the magic of the authors unique style.

About this title

Review:

"The thing about Proust is his combination of the utmost sensibility with the utmost tenacity. He searches out these butterfly shades to the last grain. He is as tough as catgut and as evanescent as a butterfly's bloom. And he will I suppose both influence me and make me out of temper with every sentence of my own." --Virginia Woolf

"An essential book for all Proust admirers, worth hours of reading and browsing." --RadioProust.com

"This is an accessible volume of memorable pictures, words, and other odds and ends." -- Publishers Weekly

"An enchanting, informative, and beautiful book in which both the elusive author and the resounding themes of his body of work come alive." --Library Journal

About the Author:

Patricia Mante-Proust is the great-grand-niece of the writer and the keeper of his estate. Mireille Naturel is the general secretary of The Society of Friends of Marcel Proust. She is the author of Proust and Flaubert: the Secret of Writing and Proust and the Literary Act: Receiving and Creating, the editor of How Proust is Received Abroad and Correspondence and Manuscripts, and she produced the critical edition of Swann in Love for Flammarion.

About this edition

• Publisher: Edition Olms Ag
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 3283012180
• ISBN 13: 9783283012182
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Patricia Monte-Proust