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À la recherche du temps perdu
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English: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of
Things Past
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Volume 1: Du côté de chez Swann
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English: Swann's Way, The Way by
Swann's
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Volume 2: À l'ombre de jeunes filles en
fleurs
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English: Within a Budding Grove, In the Shadow
of Young Girls in Flower
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Volume 3: Le Côté de Guermantes
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English: The Guermantes Way
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Volume 4: Sodome et Gomorrhe
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English: Sodom and Gomorrah, Cities of the
Plain
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Volume 5: La Prisonnière
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English: The Prisoner, The Captive
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Volume 6: Albertine disparue or La Fugitive
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English: The Fugitive, The Sweet Cheat Gone
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Volume 7: Le Temps retrouvé
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English: Time Regained, The Past Recaptured,
Finding Time Again
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Remembrance of Things Past. Trans. C.K. Scott
Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. New York: Random House,
1981.
3 Tomes.
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C.K. Scott Moncrieff rendered the title of
Proust's novel as Remembrance of Things
Past, a phrase taken from the second line of
Shakespeare's Sonnet XXX. By the time he died in
1930 Moncrieff had translated all but the final
volume of the novel, which was initially translated
by Stephen Hudson (a pseudonym of Sydney Schiff),
and then by Frederick Blossom in the U.S. (1932) and
by Andreas Mayor in the U.K. (1970). However, there
were numerous errors in the French edition upon
which Montcrieff based his translation; Beckett
called it "abominable." In 1954 the
Bibliothéque de la Pléiade published a
corrected and definitive edition of the novel (3
tomes), and in 1981 Terence Kilmartin published a
revision of Moncrieff's translation based on
this edition (although Mayor based his translation
of the final volume of the novel on the definitive
French edition, Kilmartin saw fit to make some minor
corrections). The Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Mayor
translation is still available in individual volumes
or in a boxed set in both paperback and hardbound
formats.
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In Search of Lost Time. New York: Modern
Library, 1992-93. 6 Tomes.
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In 1987 the Pléiade published a
still-more-definitive edition (4 tomes). Based
on this edition D.J. Enright revised the
Moncrieff/Kilmartin translation, and rendered the
title more accurately (although perhaps less
poetically) as In Search of Lost Time.
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In Search of Lost Time. Great Britain: Allen
Lane, 2002. 6 Tomes.
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This translation was carried out by seven different
translators—one per volume—under the
editorial direction of Christopher Prendergast. It,
too, is based on the still-more-definitive French
edition. The complete translation is only available
in Canada and the U.K. at the present time; due to
copyright issues only volumes 1-4 are to be
published in the U.S. until the next decade. This
translation has a welcome set of brief notes which
explain many of the cultural references likely lost
on modern readers. Reviewed by
The Observer.
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Swann's Way. Trans. Lydia
Davis. New York: Viking, 2003. (
paperback)
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For the American publication of this
edition the more familiar
Swann's Way returned to
replace The Way by
Swann's of the British
edition. Davis' translation is my
edition of choice. While
Montcrieff's Edwardian translation
is justifiably famous as a work of art
in its own right, Davis is able to
capture the verve and precision of
Proust's prose that is often muddied
by Montcrieff's purple renderings.
This is a more French Proust. Superb!
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In the Shadow of Young Girls in
Flower. Trans. James Grieve. New
York: Viking, 2004. (
paperback)
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Whereas I highly recommend the new
translation of Volume 1, I cannot
recommend the translation of this
volume, and suggest sticking with the
Modern Library edition. Grieve takes too
many liberties, often distorting the
sense of Proust's French. For
example, in the opening sentence of the
volume Proust writes, "Ma
mère, quand il fut question
d'avoir pour la première fois
M. de Norpois à
dîner." Moncrieff et al
render this quite correctly as, "My
mother, when it was a question of our
having M. de Norpois to dinner for the
first time." Grieve translates the
phrase as, "When it was first
suggested we invite M. de Norpois do
dinner, my mother," etc. Proust
underscores the importance the
Narrator's family places on making a
a good impression the first time Norpois
comes to dinner, not, as Grieve
suggests, on their reaction the first
time it is suggested. In another
example, Grieve describes Bergotte and
his brothers and sisters as being
"in wit or delicacy of
mind . . . no doubt
not the equals of other young
people" (129), while in the French
being witty and refined is attributed to
the other young people ("des jeunes
gens plus fins, plus spirituels"),
and the young Bergottes are not superior
to them ("Ces jeunes
Bergotte . . . n'était
sans doute pas supérieurs").
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The Guermantes Way. Trans. Mark
Trehane. New York: Viking, 2004. (
paperback)
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Sodom and Gomorrah. Trans. John
Sturrock. New York: Viking, 2004. (
paperback)
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Albertine Gone Trans. Terence Kilmartin.
London: Chatto & Windus, 1989. Translation of
Albertine disparue Paris: Grasset, 1987.
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After the death in 1986 of Proust's niece, Suzy
Mante-Proust, her son-in-law discovered among her
papers a typescript of Volume 6 of the
Recherche, corrected and annotated by
Proust. Robert Proust had prepared the posthumous
publication of this volume based on an earlier
handwritten manuscript, and the two defintive French
editions followed suit. The late changes Proust made
include a small crucial detail and the deletion of
approximately 150 pages. The English translation is
currently out of print.
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Remembrance of Things Past: Combray and
Remembrance on Things Past: Within a Budding Grove Part
One and
Part Two.
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Jean Santeuil.
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Proust worked on this novel, which adumbrates many
of the themes to be later included in the
Recherche, between 1895 and 1900; it
remains episodic and unfinished. It was first
published in 1952, and is currently out of print in
English. An episode known in Engish as
"Impressions Regained" and in French as
"Souvenirs de la mer devant le lac de
Genève" describes involuntary memory in
a manner much more clearly, although rather less
poetically, than in the Recherche. As
such, the episode may be of particular interest, so
I have made a copy of it available for download here (21KB).
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On Reading Ruskin. New Haven, Yale UP, 1987.
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This volume collects the Prefaces and selected notes
Proust wrote to his translations of two of John
Ruskin's essays, "The Bible of Amiens"
and "Sesame and Lilies." Proust's
Preface to the latter is known as "On
Reading" ["Sur la lecteur"] and is
considered an important "avant-texte" to
the Recherche. In it, Proust meditates
on reading and the relationship between readers and
books, and concludes with an anticipation of
involuntary memory.
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The Complete Stories of Marcel Proust.
Maryland: Coopers Square Press, 2001.
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This new translation of Proust's early
collection of short stories,
Les plaisirs et les jours, also contains
some stories never before published in English.
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Marcel Proust : On Art and Literature
1896-1919. New York: Carrol & Graf, 1997.
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A collection of Proust's essays on painters and
other writers. This volume also contains selections
from "Contre Saint-Beuve," a work that is
both an essay, autobiography, and fiction. Begun in
1908 (possibily 1907), this text metamorphosed into
the Recherche.
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