One of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language, Marcel Proust'sIn Search of Lost Time Vol. 1: The Way by Swann'sis published in a new translation from the French by Lydia Davis in Penguin Classics.

The Way by Swann'sis one of the great novels of childhood, depicting the impressions of a sensitive boy of his family and neighbours, brought dazzlingly back to life by the famous taste of amadeleine. It contains the separate short novel,A Love of Swann's, a study of sexual jealousy that forms a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure ofIn Search of Lost Time. This book established Proust as one of the greatest voices of the modern age - satirical, sceptical, confiding and endlessly varied in his responses to the human condition.

Since the original pre-war translationRemembrance of Things Pastby C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, there has been no completely new rendering of Proust's French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is this Penguin Classics edition ofIn Search of Lost Timethat makes Proust accessible to a new generation.

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is generally viewed as the greatest French novelist and perhaps the greatest European novelist of the 20th century. He lived much of his later life as a reclusive semi-invalid in a sound-proofed flat in Paris, giving himself over entirely to writing his masterpieceIn Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu).

If you enjoyedIn Search Of Lost Time, you might like James Joyce'sUlysses, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'The latest Penguin Proust is a triumph, and will bring this inexhaustible artwork to new audiences throughout the English-speaking world'
Sunday Telegraph