Cranston Public Library

First published in 1919, "Within a Budding Grove" is the second novel in the "In Search of Lost Time" series by famed French author Marcel Proust. Originally intended to be published in 1914, but delayed by the onset of World War I, "Within a Budding Grove" was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1919 and instantly catapulted Proust to international fame. The novel follows the narrator from the first volume, "Swann's Way", from childhood to adolescence....

Marcel Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' is considered by many to be the greatest novel of the twentieth century. The fourth volume, 'Sodom and Gomorrah', is notable for its pioneering discussion of homosexuality. After publication, Colette wrote Proust: "No one has written pages such as these on homosexuals, no one!" This edition is edited and annotated by Proust scholar William C. Carter, who endeavors to bring the classic C. K. Scott Moncrieff...

"The bonds that unite another person to ourself exist only in our mind. Memory as it grows fainter relaxes them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we would fain be cheated and with which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we cheat other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature that cannot emerge from himself, that knows his fellows only in himself; when he asserts the contrary, he is lying. We do not succeed in changing...