I came across a first edition of this book, complete with dust wrapper, in a Blue Cross charity shop. It is inscribed by someone called Gordon Pirie, dated March 1953. I looked up the autograph of the famous British long distance runner with this name but the signatures do not coincide. I removed the price sticker from the front of the dust wrapper and this action has lifted a layer of paper in the top right hand corner. More recent biographies are of course more distant than this one written less than 25 years after Proust's death. It covers the life of the great author as well as literary analysis and evolution of A la recherche du temps perdu. There are excellent chapters on Love and its passions and Humour. Maurois makes the case that the purpose of the work is to convey the universal truth of human behaviour and psychology. It may seem to be about a defunct aristocratic section of society but it is not so. Through the characters and their behaviour, faults come through at every level - we are all monsters. It is a demanding and fascinating biography. ( )

No translator given

I have the Spanish version. very superficial ( )