New Releases by Marcel Proust

The first volume of the 7-part masterpiece In Search of Lost Time, Swann''s Way introduces the reader to Charles Swann, a wealthy connoisseur in 19th-century Paris and a victim of an agonizing romance.

To admit you to the ''little nucleus,'' the ''little group,'' the ''little clan'' at the Verdurins'', one condition sufficed, but that one was indispensable; you must give tacit adherence to a Creed one of whose articles was that the young pianist, whom Mme. Verdurin had taken under her patronage that year, and of whom she said "Really, it oughtn''t to be allowed, to play Wagner as well as that!" left both Planté and Rubinstein ''sitting''; while Dr. Cottard was a more brilliant diagnostician than Potain. Each ''new recruit'' whom the Verdurins failed to persuade that the evenings spent by other people, in other houses than theirs, were as dull as ditch-water, saw himself banished forthwith. Women being in this respect more rebellious than men, more reluctant to lay aside all worldly curiosity and the desire to find out for themselves whether other drawing-rooms might not sometimes be as entertaining, and the Verdurins feeling, moreover, that this critical spirit and this demon of frivolity might, by their contagion, prove fatal to the orthodoxy of the little church, they had been obliged to expel, one after another, all those of the ''faithful'' who were of the female sex.Apart from the doctor''s young wife, they were reduced almost exclusively that season (for all that Mme. Verdurin herself was a thoroughly ''good'' woman, and came of a respectable middle-class family, excessively rich and wholly undistinguished, with which she had gradually and of her own accord severed all connection) to a young woman almost of a ''certain class,'' a Mme. de Crécy, whom Mme. Verdurin called by her Christian name, Odette, and pronounced a ''love,'' and to the pianist''s aunt, who looked as though she had, at one period, ''answered the bell'': ladies quite ignorant of the world, who in their social simplicity were so easily led to believe that the Princesse de Sagan and the Duchesse de Guermantes were obliged to pay large sums of money to other poor wretches, in order to have anyone at their dinner-parties, that if somebody had offered to procure them an invitation to the house of either of those great dames, the old doorkeeper and the woman of ''easy virtue'' would have contemptuously declined.The Verdurins never invited you to dinner; you had your ''place laid'' there. There was never any programme for the evening''s entertainment. The young pianist would play, but only if he felt inclined, for no one was forced to do anything, and, as M. Verdurin used to say: "We''re all friends here. Liberty Hall, you know!"If the pianist suggested playing the Ride of the Valkyries, or the Prelude to Tristan, Mme. Verdurin would protest, not that the music was displeasing to her, but, on the contrary, that it made too violent an impression. "Then you want me to have one of my headaches? You know quite well, it''s the same every time he plays that. I know what I''m in for. Tomorrow, when I want to get up-nothing doing!" If he was not going to play they talked, and one of the friends-usually the painter who was in favour there that year-would "spin," as M. Verdurin put it, "a damned funny yarn that made ''em all split with laughter," and especially Mme. Verdurin, for whom-so strong was her habit of taking literally the figurative accounts of her emotions-Dr. Cottard, who was then just starting in general practice, would "really have to come one day and set her jaw, which she had dislocated with laughing too much."Evening dress was barred, because you were all ''good pals,'' and didn''t want to look like the ''boring people'' who were to be avoided like the plague, and only asked to the big evenings, which were given as seldom as possible, and then only if it would amuse the painter or make the musician better known. The rest of the time you were quite happy playing charades and having supper in fancy dress, and there was no need to mingle any strange element with the little ''clan.''

Volume 1 of the great French novel in the classic translation

Marcel Proust is regarded by many as the greatest writer of the twentieth century; now you can own the majority of his landmark novel REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST on your eReader. This is the most complete works possible of the great French writer Marcel Proust, with the usual high quality Delphi features. (Current version: 1) * six volumes of the groundbreaking novel REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, with individual contents tables * features C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s celebrated translations * illustrated with images relating to Proust, his life and his works * special images of first editions, giving your eReader a flavour of the original texts * annotated with concise introductions to the novels and other texts * ALL of the original French texts are also included, allowing you to explore the beauty of Proust’s original text * scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order PLEASE NOTE: the seventh and final volume ‘TIME REGAINED’ will not enter European public domains until January 2015, when it will be added to this collection as a free update. To compensate for the missing text, the original French text has been provided. Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles CONTENTS: Remembrance of Things Past SWANN’S WAY WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE THE GUERMANTES CITIES OF THE PLAIN THE CAPTIVE THE SWEET CHEAT GONE TIME REGAINED (only in French) The Novels in French Other Works in French LES PLAISIRS ET LES JOURS PASTICHES ET MELANGES ARTICLES DE ‘La Nouvelle Revue Française’ CHRONIQUES LA BIBLE D’AMIENS SESAME ET LES LYS UNAVAILABLE WORKS Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

The first part of Marcel Proust''s Remembrance of Things Past. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine."

THE ACCLAIMED FULLY REVISED EDITION OF THE SCOTT MONCRIEFF AND KILMARTIN TRANSLATION In Sodom and Gomorrah Proust''s narrator not only depicts the class tensions of a changing France at the beginning of the twentieth century but also exposes the decadence of aristocratic Parisian society and muses upon the subjects of homosexuality and sexual jealousy.

Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME is one of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is the Penguin Proust that makes Proust accessible to a new generation. Each book is translated by a different, superb translator working under the general editorship of Professor Christopher Prendergast, University of Cambridge.

Since the original prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME is one of the greatest,most entertaining reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is the Penguin Proust that makes Proust accessible to a new generation. Each volume is translated by a different, superb translator working under the general editorship of Professor Christopher Prendergast, University of Cambridge.

One of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language, Marcel Proust''s In Search of Lost Time Vol. 1: The Way by Swann''s is published in a new translation from the French by Lydia Davis in Penguin Classics. The Way by Swann''s is one of the great novels of childhood, depicting the impressions of a sensitive boy of his family and neighbours, brought dazzlingly back to life by the famous taste of a madeleine. It contains the separate short novel, A Love of Swann''s, a study of sexual jealousy that forms a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure of In Search of Lost Time. This book established Proust as one of the greatest voices of the modern age - satirical, sceptical, confiding and endlessly varied in his responses to the human condition. Since the original pre-war translation Remembrance of Things Past by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, there has been no completely new rendering of Proust''s French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is this Penguin Classics edition of In Search of Lost Time that makes Proust accessible to a new generation. Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is generally viewed as the greatest French novelist and perhaps the greatest European novelist of the 20th century. He lived much of his later life as a reclusive semi-invalid in a sound-proofed flat in Paris, giving himself over entirely to writing his masterpiece In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu). If you enjoyed In Search Of Lost Time, you might like James Joyce''s Ulysses, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. ''The latest Penguin Proust is a triumph, and will bring this inexhaustible artwork to new audiences throughout the English-speaking world'' Sunday Telegraph

The “Guermantes Way,” in this the third volume of In Search of Lost Time, refers to the path that leads to the Duc and Duchess de Guermantes’s château near Combray. It also represents the narrator’s passage into the rarefied “social kaleidoscope” of the Guermantes’s Paris salon, an important intellectual playground for Parisian society, where he becomes a party to the wit and manners of the Guermantes’s drawing room. Here he encounters nobles, officers, socialites, and assorted consorts, including Robert de Saint Loup and his prostitute mistress Rachel, the Baron de Charlus, and the Prince de Borodino. For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of Á la recherché du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).

In Swann’s Way, the themes of Proust’s masterpiece are introduced, and the narrator’s childhood in Paris and Combray is recalled, most memorably in the evocation of the famous maternal good-night kiss. The recollection of the narrator’s love for Swann’s daughter Gilberte leads to an account of Swann’s passion for Odette and the rise of the nouveaux riches Verdurins. For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of Á la recherché du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).

The definitive translation of one of the greatest French novels of the twentieth century In the opening volume of Proust''s great novel, the narrator travels backwards in time in order to tell the story of a love affair that had taken place before his own birth. Swann''s jealous love for Odette provides a prophetic model of the narrator''s own relationships. All Proust''s great themes - time and memory, love and loss, art and the artistic vocation - are here in kernel form. ''Surely the greatest novelist of the 20th century'' Telegraph

Sodom and Gomorrah opens a new phase of In Search of Lost Time. While watching the pollination of the Duchess de Guer-mantes’s orchid, the narrator secretly observes a sexual encounter between two men. “Flower and plant have no conscious will,” Samuel Beckett wrote of Proust’s representation of sexuality. “They are shameless, exposing their genitals. And so in a sense are Proust’s men and women . . . shameless. There is no question of right and wrong.” For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of Á la recherché du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).

From the French intellectual, novelist, essayist, and one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century: the third and final volume of his monumental achievement, including The Captive, The Fugitive, and Time Regained. Marcel Proust''s masterpiece is one of the towering literary works of the twentieth century. Relating its narrator''s experiences in Belle Epoque France as he grows up, falls in love, and lives through the First World War, it has mesmerized generations of readers with its profound reflections on art, time, and memory. C. K. Scott Moncrieff''s original English translation was heralded as an artistic achievement in its own right; the later revisions to it by Terence Kilmartin were based on the definitive French Pleiade edition.