Marcel Proust

Drawing on nearly every source he could reach, George Painter wrote this biography of Marcel Proust. The book follows Proust's life and work while also reconstructing the France of the fin de siècle, from its drawing-room society and rising political unrest to the circles of poets and painters who shaped its culture.

Painter, a British writer and bibliographer, treats Proust's writing and his personal world as connected. The portrait pays close attention to the salons Proust frequented and to the public quarrels and tensions of the era, showing how these settings fed into the novel that would become In Search of Lost Time.

The biography is written for readers interested in Proust, French literary history, or the cultural life of Belle Époque Paris. It was issued as a two-volume work.