Valentin Louis Georges Eugne Marcel Proust (French: [masl pust]; 10 July 1871 18 November 1922) was

a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel la recherche du temps perdu (In
Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past). He is considered by many to be one of
the greatest authors of all time.[1]
The novel was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. Proust's novels continue in their infuence
upon contemporary culture and flm with notable flm productions including Time Regained featuring John
Malkovich and Swann's Way featuring Jeremy Irons.
Contents
1 Biography
2 Early writing
3 In Search of Lost Time
4 Bibliography
4.1 Works
4.2 Translations
5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links
8.1 Online texts
Biography
Proust was born in Auteuil (the south-western sector of Paris' then-rustic 16th arrondissement) at the home
of his great-uncle on July 10, 1871, two months after the Treaty of Frankfurt formally ended the Franco-Prus-
sian War. His birth took place during the violence that surrounded the suppression of the Paris Commune,
and his childhood corresponded with the consolidation of the French Third Republic. Much of In Search of
Lost Time concerns the vast changes, most particularly the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the
middle classes that occurred in France during the Third Republic and the fn de sicle.
Proust's father, Achille Adrien Proust, was a prominent pathologist and epidemiologist, studying cholera in
Europe and Asia. He was the author of numerous articles and books on medicine and hygiene. Proust's
mother, Jeanne Clmence Weil, was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family from Alsace.[2] Literate and
well-read, her letters demonstrate a well-developed sense of humour, and her command of English was
sufcient to help with her son's translations of John Ruskin.[3] Proust was raised in his father's Catholic
faith.[4] He was baptized (on 5 August 1871, at the church of Saint-Louis d'Antin) and later confrmed as a
Catholic but he never formally practised that faith.
By the age of nine, Proust had his frst serious asthma attack, and thereafter he was considered a sickly child.
Proust spent long holidays in the village of Illiers. This village, combined with recollections of his great-uncle's
house in Auteuil, became the model for the fctional town of Combray, where some of the most important
scenes of In Search of Lost Time take place. (Illiers was renamed Illiers-Combray in 1971 on the occasion of the
Proust centenary celebrations.)
In 1882, at the age of eleven, Proust became a pupil at Lyce Condorcet, but his education was disrupted by
his illness. Despite this he excelled in literature, receiving an award in his fnal year. Thanks to his classmates,
he was able to gain access to some of the salons of the upper bourgeoisie, providing him with copious mate-
rial for In Search of Lost Time.[5]
The photograph that scandalized Proust's mother: Marcel Proust (seated), Robert de Flers (left) and Lucien
Daudet (right), ca. 1894.
Jean Braud, La Sortie du lyce Condorcet
Despite his poor health, Proust served a year (188990) as an enlisted man in the French army, stationed at