celebrity writers

Marcel Proust, Life and Works

French Novelist, Short Story Writer and Critic

Jul 10, 2008

Biography of French writer Marcel Proust, famous for his novel Remembrance of Things Past.

French author Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is best known for his seven-part novel Remembrance of Things Past (translated as In Search of Lost Time), considered one of the most profound and perfect achievements of literature.

Early Life of Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871, in Anteuil, near Paris in France. He was the son of a prominent doctor and a wealthy Jewish mother. He suffered with asthma from an early age, a semi-invalid all his life, but this did not prevent him from attending secondary school, doing his military service. Later, he studied law and literature at the famous Sorbonne in Paris.

Proust's Writing Life

Proust began writing in magazines while at school. When he was 25 years old, he published a collection of serious yet stylish short stories entitled Pleasures and Days. About this time, he gradually withdrew from his high-society. With his health already deteriorating, and his support of Captain Dreyfus, the Jewish army officer who was wrongly accused of betraying French secrets to the Germans, Proust lost some of his aristocratic friends and other influential people in high places. The death of his father and beloved mother aggravated his grief, and he withdrew still further, becoming a virtual recluse, giving himself to introspection.

Later Years of Proust

Proust became financially independent when he was 34 years old, following the death of his parents. He started his great novel, Remembrance of Things Past. Influenced by the autobiographies of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Francois René Chateaubriand, he set out to tell the story of a search for truth based on the events of his own life. In so doing, he transformed into art the realities of experience. The main character, Marcel, discovers that as an artist he can reveal truths about life through the careful expression and reflection of his own memories. The novel was originally published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. Marcel Proust died at the age of 51, on Novemeber 18, 1922.

Works by Marcel Proust

Remembrance of Things Past (or In Search of Lost Time), published in seven parts, 1913-1927
Swann's Way, 1913 in French, 1922 in English
Within a Building Grove, 1919 in French, 1924 in English
The Guermantes Way, 1920-21, two volumes in French, 1925, in English
The Cities of the Plain, 1921-22, three volumes in French, 1927, in English
The Captive, 1923 in French, 1929 in English, posthumous
The Sweet Cheat Gone, 1925 in French, 1930 in English, posthumous
The Past Recaptured (or Time Regained), 1927 in French, 1931 in English, posthumous

Sources:

Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002

Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994

Illustrated Biographical Dictionary, edited by John Clark, Chancellor Press, 1978

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