Richard Davenport-Hines

Du côté de chez Proust

Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C K Scott Moncrieff – Soldier, Spy and Translator

By

Chatto & Windus 352pp £25 order from our bookshop

‘I have started to read Proust, 12 volumes, in Scott Moncrieff’s wonderful translation,’ Harold Macmillan wrote in his prime ministerial diary in 1959. ‘I felt I ought to do this, because of the great influence which Proust has had on modern English literature.’ Macmillan, as a publisher, knew that A la Recherche du temps perdu had shaped, modified and swayed the work of countless 20th-century English novelists, essayists and memoir writers, and that Charles Scott Moncrieff’s translation, on which he worked from 1921 until 1929, had mediated that impact on English readers. For generations, Scott Moncrieff was to Proust what Richard Burton was to The Arabian Nights, yet it has taken eighty-four years since his death for a full study of his life and ideas.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'Pollan has no doubt that the use of psychedelics could have a powerfully beneficial effect on a range of condition… ,
    • A memoir about an Untouchable family and the 'formation of modern India': 'Ants among Elephants' by @gidla_sujatha… ,
    • RT : First founded in Edinburgh in 1979, is considered a trusted independent source for reviews of new book… ,
    • 'In different ways Hatherley makes gritty Lódź and poor old which-country-are-we-in-this-week Lviv sound entrancing… ,
    • In this issue Lucy Popescu discusses the miscarriages of justice occurring in the investigation over Maltese journa… ,
    • 'Rodin’s fascination with ancient Greek sculpture is part of a long and distinguished French tradition.' A review o… ,
    • The New Testament, in a new translation by David Bentley Hart, reviewed by Salley Vickers ,
    Follow Us