Proust's Deadline

Marcel Proust's multivolume masterpiece, A la recherche du temps perdu, began to appear in 1913. Over the next fifty years, it gained a reputation as one of the greatest literary works of the twentieth century. But the novel's classic image as a completed work was later shattered by the discovery of unpublished drafts, and the "e;war of the Prousts"e; has kept scholars arguing over its definitive form ever since. Christine M. Cano's Proust's Deadline presents a concise history of the publishing and reception of A la recherche du temps perdu, and sorts out the most important issues that have arisen from the ensuing debates about the text. She ultimately shows how this quintessential "e;book about time"e; tells another story about time's passage: the story of Proust's mortal confrontation with the temporality of writing, publishing, and reading.