Born in 1871 in the Parisian suburb of Auteil, Marcel Proust led an active social life in his youth, penetrating the highest circles of weal th and aristocracy. He suffered from severe asthma, which worsened as he grew older, and his illness prompted him to withdraw from society and devote himself to writing. Swann’s Way was published in 1913, and only three more volumes of the six-volume novel were published in his lifetime. The second, Within a Budding Grove, won the Goncourt Prize and brought Proust instant fame in 1919. Proust died in 1922; the subsequent volumes were published posthumously.

First published in 1919, Within a Budding Grove was awarded the Prix Goncourt, bringing the author immediate fame. In this second volume of In Search of Lost Time, the narrator turns from the childhood reminiscences of Swann’s Way to memories of his adolescence. Having gradually become indifferent to Swann’s daughter Gilberte, the narrator visits the seaside resort of Balbec with his grandmother and meets a new object of attention—Albertine, “a girl with brilliant, laughing eyes and plump, matt cheeks.”