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The first volume of Marcel Prousts monumental masterpiecein the classic Scott MoncrieffKilmartin translationis not only a perfect introduction to a literary landmark, it also stands on its own as one of the most sensitive renderings of childhood in fiction and a brilliant meditation on the recreation of the past through art and memory.

Swanns Way is the most frequently read part of Prousts epic novel, Remembrance of Things Past (also known as In Search of Lost Time). It introduces subjects that resonate throughout the entire work, including the narrators love for Swanns daughter Gilberte, Swanns jealous passion for Odette, and the rise of the nouveaux-riches Verdurins. Prousts narrator vividly recalls his childhood in Paris and Combray, most famously in a fraught evocation of his mothers good-night kiss and in the iconic scene where the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea brings back a flood of memory.