<b>The definitive translation of one of the greatest French novels of the twentieth century</b><br><br>In the opening volume of Proust''s great novel, the narrator travels backwards in time in order to tell the story of a love affair that had taken place before his own birth. Swann''s jealous love for Odette provides a prophetic model of the narrator''s own relationships. All Proust''s great themes - time and memory, love and loss, art and the artistic vocation - are here in kernel form.<br><br><b>''Surely the greatest novelist of the 20th century'' <i>Telegraph</i></b>