Seven works in eleven volumes, all first English language editions. Each volume in original blue cloth lettered in gilt, in original cream printed dustwrappers, apart from Cities of the Plain which is in its original slipcase with vol. II in a plain glassine, having not been issued in dustwrappers. Cities of the Plain is number 361 of 2230 sets. Time Regained number 1153 of 1350 copies. A fine set in mostly near fine dustwrappers, with the light uniform tanning to the spines and a little fraying to the head of the spines of The Captive and Time Regained. The rarer early works are in notably crisp condition, with only the most trifling wear to the extremities and a small repair to the rear flap of the final volume. An exceptional set, very rare in such a complete state.

A superb set of the English translation of Proust's magnum opus, A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, widely regarded as the twentieth century's most influential, even definitive, novel. It was written as and is contrived to be read as a single novel, yet is made up of seven self-contained works. Proust began working in earnest on the work in 1909 completing most of it in outline before the publication of the first instalment in 1913. By the time of his death from pneumonia in 1922, he had fully completed all but a few passages of the work and the episodes continued appearing, to ever greater acclaim, until their conclusion in 1927.
The novel's fame and influence in England is mainly due to the translation made by Charles Scott Moncrieff, the first volume being issued a few months before Proust's death in 1922 and continuing until Moncrieff's own death in 1930, by which time he was part way through translating the final volume, which was completed by Syndey Schiff under the pseudonym, Stephen Hudson. Moncrieff's choice of series title, rather than the more literal "In Search of Lost Time" which the novel is now often referred to as, was taken from the second line of Shakespeare's Sonnet no. 30.
The work's influence on modernism and the development of the novel is hard to overstate: many techniques which were to become a staple of the twentieth century, such as the extensive use of the interior monologue or the stream of consciousness style have their origins in this work.
Between approximately 1000 and 2500 copies of each of the volumes of the translation were issued, making complete sets uncommon and almost inevitably found without dustwrappers. Sets in dustwrappers, particularly unrestored and so well preserved are very rare indeed.

Stock ID: 45756