Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was born on July 10th 1871 in the district of Auteuil in Paris, two months after the formal end of the Franco-Prussian War. Proust was brought up in his father's Catholic faith and baptised on 5th August 1871, at the church of Saint-Louis d'Antin. Attacks of asthma from childhood resulted in poor health and together with a lack of drive and self-disclipine meant his progress to the status of literary giant was halting and only really achieved in middle-age. His early work was for magazines and translations of his beloved John Ruskin. An inheritance from his mother gave him both the time and money to finally engage his prodigious talents. Proust began to shape a novel centered on a first-person narrator who, unable to sleep, spends his nights remembering hours waiting as a child for his mother to return to him in the morning. Publishers were not as keen on the work as Proust imagined they should be. It needed a re-think. The culmination of that was to become a literary event. To move forward he retained many of the themes and started over on what was now to become 'À La Recherche du Temps Perdu'. Proust was now 38 years old and despite his lack of major works to date he was undaunted. 'À la Recherche du Temps Perdu' ('In Search of Lost Time') would eventually consist of seven volumes which would span some 3, 200 pages and contain more than 2, 000 characters. Proust spent the last three years of his life mostly confined to his bedroom, sleeping during the day and working at night to complete his novel. Marcel Proust died on 18th November 1922 of pneumonia and a pulmonary abscess. He was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Within a Budding Grove
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In the second volume of the acclaimed novel, the narrator recalls his adolescent discoveries of art and women in Belle Époque France.

Following the events of Swann's Way, the nameless narrator shifts his attention to memories of his teenage years. His relationship with the Swann family is altered as his love for Gilberte fizzles out. Two years later, he accompanies his grandmother to the resort town of Balbec on the Normandy coast. There, he encounters figures who will change his life: Robert de Saint-Loup, who becomes his friend; the magnificent painter Elstir; and the new object of his affection, the beautiful Albertine, who causes him to reflect on the nature of love.

Although it was originally meant to be published in 1914, Within a BuddingGrove's release was delayed until 1919 due to World War I. The book was awarded the Prix Goncourt, which quickly garnered fame for Proust. It is the second of seven volumes in a saga Edmund White hailed as "the most respected novel of the twentieth century."

Praise for Marcel Proust

"Reading Proust . . . it's a whole world not just a book. Everyone wants to live more than one life and Proust is like 'here's another one you can live.'" -Francine Prose, New York Times-bestselling author of Mister Monkey

"I can think of only one other writer capable of such breadth and humanity: Shakespeare." -André Aciman, New York Times-bestselling author of Find Me

"When I want to restore my faith in literature, I read Proust. . . . Reading Proust is like watching a galaxy being put together, one particle at a time." -Aleksandar Hemon, author of The Making of Zombie Wars
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