Finding Time Again

The long-awaited final volume in the acclaimed Penguin translation of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time—one of the world’s most beloved works of literature

“The greatest literary work of the twentieth century.” —The New York Times

A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper

Ian Patterson’s acclaimed new translation of Finding Time Again introduces a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. The seventh and final volume in Penguin Classics' superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time—the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s—brings us a more comic and lucid prose than readers of English have previously been able to enjoy.

In Finding Time Again, Marcel discovers his world destroyed by war and those he knew transformed by the march of time. An exquisite picture of France in the throes of the First World War, and containing, in the “Bal des têtes” sequence, one of Proust’s most devastating set pieces, Finding Time Again triumphantly describes the paradox of facing mortality yet overcoming it through the act of writing. As Marcel rediscovers his vocation, he realizes that he can live on by writing down the story of his own memories and of his quest to recapture the past.

For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Marcel Proust (1871–1922) was born in Auteuil, France. In his twenties, following a year in the army, he became a conspicuous society figure, frequenting the most fashionable Paris salons of the day. After 1899, however, his chronic asthma, the deaths of his parents, and his growing disillusionment with humanity caused him to lead an increasingly retired life. From 1907 on, he rarely emerged from his apartment on Boulevard Haussmann, where he wrote letters and devoted himself to the completion of In Search of Lost Time. 

Ian Patterson (translator) is a poet and translator and a fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he teaches English. He has published numerous essays on twentieth-century literature and is married to the writer Olivia Laing.

Christopher Prendergast (general editor), the author of Living and Dying with Marcel Proust, is a professor emeritus of French literature at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of King’s College.