Before the novel appeared as a book, Proust published several excerpts from the section later known as “Combray” in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. This early serialization introduced readers to the narrator’s childhood memories and helped build interest in a work that publishers had initially rejected.
After refusals from major publishers, Proust paid to publish the first volume, Du côté de chez Swann, with Bernard Grasset in Paris. It went on sale in mid-November 1913 and established the opening movement of what would become À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time).
During World War I’s disruption of the French book trade, Proust’s relationship with Grasset broke down. He moved the project to Gallimard’s Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF) circle, setting up the later volumes’ publication path and a more stable editorial home.
The second volume, À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, appeared with the NRF/Gallimard publishing network after the wartime delay. Its publication marked a major continuation of the narrator’s story—from childhood memory toward adolescence and the wider social world.
Proust received France’s most famous literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, for À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. The award significantly raised his public profile and helped secure the cultural standing of the expanding multi-volume novel.
Gallimard issued Le Côté de Guermantes I, beginning a two-part publication of the third volume. The narrative moves deeper into aristocratic Paris society, showing how status, reputation, and conversation shape the narrator’s understanding of people.
The publication plan bridged volumes: Le Côté de Guermantes II appeared in a book that also introduced Sodome et Gomorrhe I. This linking reflected how Proust’s project had grown beyond his earlier plan into a longer, more interwoven structure.
Gallimard published Sodome et Gomorrhe II, completing the fourth part of the sequence. This was the last volume for which Proust was fully alive during the publication period, even as he continued revising later sections in poor health.
C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s English translation of Swann’s Way was published in 1922, bringing the opening of Proust’s cycle to a wider Anglophone audience. This translation launched a multi-year English publication sequence that would shape how many readers first encountered Proust.
Proust died in November 1922, after years of intense revision and expansion of the novel’s later parts. Responsibility for preparing the remaining volumes for publication shifted to his literary executors, especially his brother Robert Proust working with Gallimard/NRF.
Gallimard released La Prisonnière, beginning the section often called the “Albertine” part of the story. Its publication showed how the project continued after Proust’s death, using manuscripts he left in advanced but not fully finalized form.
Albertine disparue (also known as La Fugitive in some editions) appeared as the sixth volume. It advances the consequences of the narrator’s relationship with Albertine and moves the overall cycle toward its final reflections on memory, loss, and meaning.
As editors prepared the final book, Gallimard published excerpts of Le Temps retrouvé in the Nouvelle Revue Française across several issues in 1927. This pre-publication helped reintroduce the concluding volume to readers and signaled that the long-promised ending was imminent.
Gallimard published Le Temps retrouvé in 1927, in two volumes, completing the full narrative arc of À la recherche du temps perdu. With its publication, Proust’s long modernist experiment in memory and time became a finished, seven-part work rather than an open-ended project.
Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time: serialization, volumes, and translations (1913-1927)