Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time

A Reader's Guide by Patrick Alexander

‘Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time’ is an accessible, irreverent guide to one of the most admired novels in literature. With its seven volumes, three-thousand pages, some four-hundred characters, well over a million words and a towering literary reputation, Proust’s novel ‘In Search of Lost Time’ can seem daunting for twenty-first century readers. But, though first published a century ago, in 1913, it remains as engaging and relevant as ever today and is an outrageously bawdy and extremely funny book. Patrick Alexander makes it more approachable through this user-friendly tour of the marvelous world of Proust, including:

•  An overview of the novel and its themes

•  Detailed plot summaries of all seven volumes

•  A guide to more than fifty of the novel’s major characters

•   Illustrations, a map and family trees

•  A brief biography of Marcel Proust

•  A guide to Proust’s Paris

•  Historical background to France’s Belle Époque, the Dreyfus Affair and much, much more

 This reader’s guide, first published in 2009 by Vintage Books is a wonderful introduction for first time readers and a memory refresher for longtime fans. Alexander’s goal is to encourage readers to plunge into Proust’s astonishing, profound and enchanting masterpiece and discover its pleasures for themselves.

 Alexander’s book is available in all bookstores and can also be ordered direct from Amazon