Publication of In Search of Lost Time

In Search of Lost Time, also translated as Remembrance of Things Past, is a monumental novel in seven volumes by the French writer Marcel Proust. The first volume, Swann's Way, was published at the author's own expense after publishers rejected it, and the last volumes appeared after his death. The narrator recalls his childhood, his love affairs and his experience of high society in Paris, in prose famous for its very long sentences. A central idea is involuntary memory, as when the taste of a madeleine cake dipped in tea suddenly brings back a whole forgotten world. The work reflects on time, art, jealousy and habit, and it is regarded as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

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