Swann's Way

The only paperback edition of the definitive translation of the first part of the legendary novel. Reading it is "a rapturous experience" (David Denby).

Swann's Way, the first part of A la recherche du temps perdu, Marcel Proust's seven-part cycle, was published in 1913. In it, Proust introduces the themes that run through the entire work. The narrator recalls his childhood, aided by the famous madeleine; and describes M. Swann's passion for Odette. The work is incomparable. Edmund Wilson said " Proust has supplied for the first time in literature an equivalent in the full scale for the new theory of modern physics".

This is the most up-to-date translation available. In 1989, the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade published the final volume of the definitive original text. For this translation, D.J. Enright revised the late Terence Kilmartin's acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff's translation to take into account the new French editions.