Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 2

Nov 30, 2025 10:03 PM

Author:Marcel Proust,C. K. Scott Moncrieff

One of the greatest translations of all time: Scott Moncrieff's classic version of Proust, published in three stunning clothbound volumes designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time, memory, self and loss, it is often viewed as the definitive modern novel. C. K. Scott Moncrieff's famous translation from the 1920s is today regarded as a classic in its own right and is now available in three volumes in Penguin Classics.

This first volume includes Swann's Way and Within a Budding Grove.

'Scott Moncrieff's [volumes] belong to that special category of translations which are themselves literary masterpieces ... his book is one of those translations, such as the Authorized Version of the Bible itself, which can never be displaced' - A. N. Wilson

'For the reader wishing to tackle Proust your guide must be C K Scott Moncrieff ... There are some who believe his headily perfumed translation of À la recherche du temps perdu conjures Belle Époque France more vividly even than the original' - Telegraph

'I was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation' - Joseph Conrad to Scott Moncrieff

Reviews

Scott Moncrieff's [volumes] belong to that special category of translations which are themselves literary masterpieces ... his book is one of those translations, such as the Authorized Version of the Bible itself, which can never be displaced

—— A. N. Wilson

For the reader wishing to tackle Proust your guide must be C K Scott Moncrieff ... There are some who believe his headily perfumed translation of À la recherche du temps perdu conjures Belle Époque France more vividly even than the original

—— Telegraph

I was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation

—— Joseph Conrad to Scott Moncrieff

A writer at the peak of his powers; it reminds you what good reading is all about

—— Chicago Sun Times

Reading Turgenev is one of the most beautiful and memorable things he has written. It stays in your memory -like Turgenev

—— Independent on Sunday

He writes like an angel, but is determined to wring your heart. Trevor at his most evocative and haunting

—— Daily Mail

The essential novel for any Star Wars fan

—— Inverse

The greatest of all novels. Read it again, to test and savour the infallible truth of Tolstoy’s understanding of every stage and aspect of human life

—— Alan Hollinghurst , New York Times

To read him . . . is to find one's way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane

—— Thomas Mann

In War And Peace, richly observed human life - its catastrophes and passions, its thrills and tedium - mark out Tolstoy as a fox, who knows all about the dizzying diversity of existence

—— Observer

Highly and deservedly praised...is a remarkable achievement.

—— Contemporary Review

Wonderfully readable

—— Wendy Cope , The Week

Translators give their wits and craft selflessly in service of others' work; this is a triumph of fidelity and unpretentiousness.

—— The Independent

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