In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower In Search of Lost Time, Volume 2 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

In the Shadow of Young Girls in Floweris Proust’s spectacular dissection of male and female adolescence, charged with the narrator’s memories of Paris and the Normandy seaside. At the heart of the story lie his relationships with his grandmother and with the Swann family. As a meditation on different forms of love, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flowerhas no equal. Here, Proust introduces some of his greatest comic inventions, from the magnificently dull M. de Norpois to the enchanting Robert de Saint-Loup. It is memorable as well for the first appearance of the two figures who for better or worse are to dominate the narrator’s life—the Baron de Charlus and the mysterious Albertine.

Marcel Proust (1871-û1922) was the greatest French novelist of the twentieth century.
James Grieve, former reader in French at the Australian National University, has published a translation of the first part of Proust-'s work (Swann-'s Way, 1982) and two novels for young adults.
Christopher Prendergast is professor of French at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of King-'s College.