In Search of Lost Time, Vol 3

Marcel Proust was born in Auteuil in 1871. In his twenties he became a conspicuous society figure, frequenting the most fashionable Paris salons of the day. After 1899, however, his suffering from chronic asthma, the death of his parents and his growing disillusionment with humanity caused him to lead an increasingly retired life. He slept by day and worked by night, writing letters and devoting himself to the completion of A la recherche du temps perdu. He died in 1922 before publication of the last three volumes of his great work.

Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff was born in Scotland in 1889 and served on the Western Front in the First World War, where he was seriously injured at the Battle of Arras. In 1922, he started work on his famous translation of Proust’s novel, taking his English title from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30. He was still translating the novel at the time of his death in Rome in 1930.

Terence Kilmartin (1922–1991) was the longtime literary editor of The Observer. As a translator, he was best known for his acclaimed reworkings of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s and Andreas Mayor’s translations of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past.

D. J. Enright (1920–2002) was an essayist, anthologist, reviewer, and poet. His works include The Alluring Problem: An Essay on Irony, The Oxford Book of Death, Collected Poems, and Selected Poems.