'The memory of a particular image is only regret for a particular moment...'

The Swann Way is the first volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913-27), one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. The work is a portal to Proust's novel and an introduction to its unforgettable first-person narrator-protagonist. Immersed in themes of time, memory, identity, art, sensation, love, and jealousy, the narrator embarks on the story of his life and the paths he takes towards fulfilling his vocation as a writer. Principally focused on the narrator's childhood, this volume lays the foundation of Proust's extraordinary literary edifice.

The first volume in a major new translation of In Search of Lost Time, co-edited by Brian Nelson and Adam Watt.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Marcel Proust

Brian Nelson is an Emeritus Professor at Monash University, Melbourne, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. His publications include Zola: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press), The Cambridge Introduction to French Literature, The Cambridge Companion to Zola, Zola and the Bourgeoisie, and translations for Oxford World's Classics of Zola's The Assommoir, His Excellency Eugène Rougon, Earth (with Julie Rose), The Fortune of the Rougons, The Belly of Paris, The Kill, Pot Luck and The Ladies' Paradise. He has also translated Swann in Love by Marcel Proust for the Oxford World's Classics series. He was awarded the New South Wales Premier's Prize for Translation in 2015.

Adam Watt is Professor of French & Comparative Literature at the University of Exeter, where he is Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. His books include Reading in Proust's A la recherche: le délire de la lecture (Oxford University Press), The Cambridge Introduction to Marcel Proust, a critical biography of Proust; and, as editor, Marcel Proust in Context and The Cambridge History of the Novel in French. He has published comparative work on Proust and a range of writers from Valéry, Rivière, Beckett and Barthes to Eve Kosofsky-Sedgwick and Anne Carson.