The Harvardwood Introduction to Proust

This concise overview makes a sweeping, timeless literary classic more accessible to modern readers. The year 2013 marks the centennial of the publication of the first volume of Marcel Proust’s masterwork, A la recherche du temps perdu or In Search of Lost Time. The first volume was titled Du cote de chez Swann or Swann’s Way. The full story extends to more than a million words. While it is a masterpiece of world literature, it is not something that can be digested with the ease of, say, a sonnet by Shakespeare, or a painting by Matisse. The goal of this brief introduction is to democratize Proust, and also to induce more readers to celebrate him. It includes extensive references for scholarly study, but is easy for lay readers to appreciate.