DescriptionMarcel Proust was forty-two years old when Swanns Way was published, but its foundational ideas and general shape had been evolving for decades. Contexts includes a 1912 readers report of the manuscript that exemplifies publishers complicated reactions to Prousts new form of writing. Also included are three important post-publication reviews of the novel, by Elie-Joseph Bois, Lucien Daudet, and Paul Souday, as well as Andr Arnyveldes 1913 interview with Proust.The fourteen critical essays and interpretations of Swanns Way in this volume speak to the novels many facets--from the musical to the artistic to its representations of Judaism and homosexuality. Contributors include G rard Genette, whose Metonymy in Proust appears here in English translation for the first time, along with Gilles Deleuze, Roger Shattuck, Claudia Brodsky, Julia Kristeva, Margaret E. Gray, and Alain de Botton, among others.The edition also includes a Chronology of Prousts Life and Work, a Selected Chronology of French Literature from 1870 to 1929, and a Selected Bibliography.