A new book of letters between the writer and a lifelong banker friend, published in France on Thursday, makes for a veritable banquet of Proustian marginalia
Marcel Proust in 1895
Image: Otto Wegener (1849-1924)
A trove of never-before-seen letters reveal that French literary giant Marcel Proust made a previously unknown trip to England and was driven around the bend by a scrounging house guest.
Any crumbs about the author (1871-1922), whose monumental "In Search of Lost Time" is considered one of the greatest books of all time, are treated with fan-boy excitement by the world's many Proust obsessives.
So a new book of letters between the writer and a lifelong banker friend, published in France on Thursday, makes for a veritable banquet of Proustian marginalia.
Horace Finaly was a classmate who ended up heading the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, today's giant BNP Paribas.
The letters had been kept by Finaly's family, and emerged last year when they were sold at auction for 78,000 euros.