Marcel Proust, author of Remembrance of Things Past, was nothing if not an avid correspondent: and after he withdrew from society to his cork-lined room, his correspondence seems to have become the only link between the inner and outside worlds. Scholars are fascinated by his letters because they show how the author"s three-volume masterwork was plotted and planned over a ten-year period. This unprecedented book includes is a chronicle of Proust"s life, commentary on the letters, a bibliographical compilation of the editions of correspondence, and - most fascinatingly - facsimiles of many letters, showing addresses, omissions, allusions and crossings-out, revealing a remarkable amount about Proust"s mysterious private life. Only published in French and German.