Publisher's Synopsis
First published in 1977, this Set is now available in paperback. At the time of publication, it had not previously not been feasible to study in depth the expansion of Proust's famous novel, A la recherché du temps perdu. In 1913, the novel was to be 1500 pages; by 1922, when Proust died, it was 3000. How did it grow to such proportions? Which characters were always there - which ones sprang from their author's imagination in his very last years? Had Proust always been as interested in certain psychological phenomena as he was to become during the First World War and after? With the public release of the Proust manuscripts, these questions could be answered over a range, and with a certainty, that surpass those of any previous published work. With an extensive and original survey of the post-1914 manuscripts, typescripts and proofs of A la recherché du temps perdu, Alison Winton provided an intellectual and spiritual biography Proust at the height of his creativity. In Volume I Dr Winton shows which episodes and characters in the novel were of early and which of later inspiration and, in the tables in Volume II, gives exact details of the additions
