Swann's Way, Paperback

Marcel Proust was forty-two years old when Swann's Way was published, but its foundational ideas and general shape had been evolving for decades. "Contexts" includes a 1912 reader's report of the manuscript that exemplifies publishers' complicated reactions to Proust's new form of writing. Also included are three important post-publication reviews of the novel, by Elie-Joseph Bois, Lucien Daudet, and Paul Souday, as well as Andr Arnyvelde's 1913 interview with Proust.

The fourteen critical essays and interpretations of Swann's Way in this volume speak to the novel's many facets--from the musical to the artistic to its representations of Judaism and homosexuality. Contributors include G rard Genette, whose "Metonymy in Proust" appears here in English translation for the first time, along with Gilles Deleuze, Roger Shattuck, Claudia Brodsky, Julia Kristeva, Margaret E. Gray, and Alain de Botton, among others.

The edition also includes a Chronology of Proust's Life and Work, a Selected Chronology of French Literature from 1870 to 1929, and a Selected Bibliography.