Overview

The extraordinary life and times of Marcel Proust, one of the greatest literary voices of the twentieth century, by ""Proust's definitive biographer"" (Harold Bloom) Based on a wealth of letters, memoirs, workbooks, and manuscripts unavailable before, the book examines Proust’s character and development as an artist, the glittering Parisian world of which he was a part, and the passions that enabled him to write his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. “Serious, thoughtful, well-balanced, well-informed. . . . Carter is the kind of reader Proust hoped for, one who understands that a great work compels us to become better readers of ourselves.”—Victor Brombert, Los Angeles Times “An impeccably researched and well-paced narrative that brings vividly and credibly to life not only the writer himself but also the changing world he knew.”—Roger Pearson, New York Times Book Review Named a Notable Book of 2000 by the New York Times Book Review

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9780300191790

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Reviews

'This new biography gains interest and density as it follows the delicate child, carried in his mother's womb during the hardships and hazards of the 1870-71 Prussian siege of Paris, through a pampered childhood and self-indulgent youth into the bedridden, drug-addled adulthood that produced a heroically long and intricate masterpiece. It is an inspiring story - a life justified in the majestic retelling of that life, in a novel whose climax is the vision of itself, as its hero arrives at the blessed condition of an author.' (John Updike, New Yorker) 'William Carter's judicious and comprehensive biography tells a story whose structure closely corresponds with its subject's masterpiece.' (Lucy Hughes-Hallet, Sunday Times) 'A new biography which helps to explain how someone considered by his contemporaries to be a talented but frivolous dilettante came to produce what is arguable the major novel of the 20th century.' (The Sunday Telegraph) 'An impeccably researched and well-paced narrative that brings vividly and credibly to life not only the writer himself but also the changing world he knew.' (Roger Pearson, New York Times Book Review) 'William C. Carter is Proust's definitive biographer.' (Harold Bloom)

Carter's greatest contribution to date ... [a] towering biography of Proust, meticulously researched and accessibly written. -Adam Watt, H-France Review -- Adam Watt H-France Review

Author Information

William C. Carter, professor emeritus of French at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is the author of Proust in Love and a new, fully annotated edition of Proust’s classic Swann’s Way.

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