Marcel Proust correspondence
Scope and Contents
Brandeis’s collection of Marcel Proust correspondence contains 23 of Proust’s letters, ranging from February of 1913, the year Proust published the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, Du côté de chez Swann (Swann’s Way), to September of 1916, the year he parted ways with his first publisher, Bernard Grasset. The letters, all written by Proust to Grasset (except one, addressed to Grasset’s business partner Louis Brun), reveal Proust’s sometimes fraught relationship with his publisher, his concerns about the format and reception of his novel, and the themes he hoped to communicate to his audience. While twenty of the letters are undated, they were published as part of Proust’s correspondence (with dates) by Proust scholar Philip Kolb between 1971 and 1992. All but one of the letters are handwritten, and three are accompanied by typed transcriptions in French. Only one letter has an attached English translation in the collection, but seven within the collection were published in translated form by Kolb in his 1992 book, Marcel Proust: Selected Letters.
Dates
- Creation: 1913-1916; undated
Conditions Governing Access
Access to the collection is in accordance with the policies of the Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department, Brandeis University. Please contact the department for more information.
Conditions Governing Use
Requests to reproduce or publish material from the collection should be directed to the Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department, Brandeis University.
Extent
23.00 Letters
Language of Materials
French
Arrangement
Letters are arranged chronologically in one series; estimated dates for undated letters are in square brackets and are taken from Kolb's Marcel Proust: Selected Letters and from the research of Hollie Harder, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies, and Director of the Language Programs, Romance Studies. Kolb volumes, numbers, and page numbers refer to Proust, Marcel, 1871-1922. Correspondence. Ed. Philip Kolb. [Paris]: Plon 1970. 16 volumes.
- Date
- 20120000
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Language of description note
- eng
Repository Details
Part of the Brandeis University Repository
415 South St.
Waltham MA