PROUST Marcel À la recherche du temps perdu.

En français dans le texte, 342.

First edition of the most important French novel of the twentieth century and a masterpiece of European literature. A very nice set of first editions, rare and complete in first issue, then large paper.

The copy of Du côté de chez Swann is in first printing, as evidenced by the typographical error on the title page at ‘Grasset’. A bar ‘|’ slips between the “E” and the ‘T’, an error that was quickly corrected during printing and does not appear on the large papers that were printed after the correction. In addition, the absence of the table of contents and the presence of the Grasset catalogue at the end of the volume attest to this first edition.

The copy of A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs is also the first edition, which had a print run of 500 copies. It does not include any mention of the edition, unlike the following 2,000 copies, which bear a fictitious mention on the cover.The following volumes, all in first edition, are numbered on pure thread, which are the only large papers with the reimposed ones, and are the same size as the first two volumes.

“Du côté de chez Swann is the first volume of Proust’s monumental opus A la recherche du temps perdu, the most important French novel of the twentieth century and a masterpiece of European literature. This first volume described the narrator’s childhood and contains the celebrated madeleine episode. Publication of subsequent volumes was interrupted by the war. This novel, famously turned down by Gide for the N.R.F, was published at the author’s expense by Grasset. By 1918 the N.R.F had realised its huge blunder and published A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, which won the Prix Goncourt and established Proust as a major literature figure” (From Stendhal to Rene Char: Le Cabinet de livres de Renaud Gillet, Sotheby’s, 27 October 1999, lot 64).

“Translated by Scott Moncreiff as Swann’s Way etc., Proust’s great novel A la recherche du temps perdu is something that happens once in a hundred years like Les Fleurs du Mal or War and Peace. He combined tragic poetical insight with the gift of creating comic characters in the round, like Shakespeare. He is consistently both intelligent and poetic. Bergsonian philosophy of time gives depth, Ruskinian aesthetics texture. Embittered by his homosexual bias and disabling asthma, he shows some deterioration in the unrevised volumes though not enough to upset this magisterially executed conception of a master-mind in which art erects its monument to dead loves using for material only thought and the passage of time. ‘It appeals to our sense of wonder and gains our hommage by its veiled greatness. I don’t think there ever has been in the whole of literature such an example of the power of analysis’ (Conrad)” (Connolly, The Modern Movement).

“Le mouvement de la narration se confond avec celui que le temps ne cesse d’imprimer aux êtres et aux lieux. Ce mouvement de métamorphose continue culminera lors de la matinée chez la princesse de Guermantes, où se juxtapose à la série de réminiscences, révélant sa vocation à celui qui n’est pas encore le narrateur, ce qui constitue l’horizon idéal de l’œuvre: la fusion de deux univers jusqu’alors étrangers […]  Car dans la Recherche, le temps est beaucoup plus qu’un simple motif thématique: il est la matière même de l’œuvre, et jusque dans son inachèvement. […] De cette pérégrination parmi les signes toujours muables, il faut enfin reconnaître la dimension sacrificielle. Si le temps révèle en détruisant, pour l’auteur lui-même la réalité de l’œuvre ne s’acquiert qu’au comble de pareille destruction” (Gilles, Quinsat, En français dans le texte, 342).

A superb set in perfect condition, with its printed wrappers bound in, by Paul Gruel (1864-1954), son and successor to Léon Gruel (1841-1923) at the head of this illustrious Parisian workshop.

Detailed collation:

•       Du côté de Chez Swan, Paris, Grasset, 1913. 12mo (185 x 114 mm) of 2 blank leaves,  2 unn.l. (half-title and title), 523 pp., 1 un.p. (achevé d’imprimer), 4 unn.l. (Grasset’s catalogue).

Slight stains on pages 75, 131, 135 and 142, very slight loss at the top of page 345.

•       A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. Paris, Éditions de la nouvelle revue française, 1918. 12mo (188 x 122 mm) of 2 blank leaves, 443 pp., 2 unn.l. (tables and achevé d’imprimer).

•       Le côté de Guermantes, Paris, Éditions de la nouvelle revue française, 1920 & 1921. 2 volumes 8vo (188 x 132 mm) of 279 pp, 1 unn.p. (achevé d’imprimé), 1 l of errata for the volume I ; 282 pp, 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimer) for the volume II.

Copies number 583 of 1040 on Lafuma pure thread vellum paper.

Contains the first part of Sodom and Gomorrah.

•       Sodome et Gomorrhe, Paris, Éditions de la nouvelle revue française, 1922 .3 volumes 8vo (190 x 133 mm) of 230 pp. et 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimé) for the volume I ; 236 pp. 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimer), 1 blank leaf for the volume II ; 237 pp., 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimer) for the volume III.

Copy ‘g’, out of commerce, printed on Lafuma-Navarre pure thread vellum paper for volume I.

Copy ‘c’, out of commerce, printed on Lafuma-Navarre pure thread vellum paper for volume II.

Copy ‘e’, out of commerce, printed on Lafuma-Navarre pure thread vellum paper for volume III.

Ink mark at the bottom of the white margin on page 51 of volume III.

•       La Prisonnière, Paris, Éditions de la nouvelle revue française, 1923. 2 volumes 8vo (188 x 133 mm) of 238 pp. and 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimer) for the volume I ; 287 pp., 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimer, 1 blank leaf for the volume II.

Copies 238 out of 917 reserved for friends of the first edition.

•       Albertine disparue, Paris, Librairie Gallimard, Éditions de la nouvelle revue française, 1925. 2 volumes 8vo (188 x 133 mm) of 225 pp., 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimer) for the volume I ; 213 pp., 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimer) for the volume II.

Copies 710 out of 1,200 reserved for friends of the first edition.

•       Le Temps retrouvé, Paris, Librairie Gallimard, Éditions de la nouvelle revue française, 1927. 2 volumes 8vo(188 x 133 mm) de 237 pp., 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimer) for the volume I ; 261 pp., 1 un.l. (achevé d’imprimer) for the volume II.

Copies 109 out of 1,200 reserved for friends of the first edition.

Ink shortage for page 38 of volume II.