Marcel Proust 
The Guermantes Way 

First published in 1920, ‘The Guermantes Way’ is the third volume of Marcel Proust’s masterpiece, ‘In Search of Lost Time’. 



In ‘The Guermantes Way’, our narrator, Marcel, is now a little older (if not much wiser) and still keen to make the acquaintance of any attractive woman who crosses his path. The novel refers to the path that runs past the château belonging to the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes near Combray and also to the route the narrator takes to make his way into their Parisian salon. He encounters a world of nobles, officers, socialites, and assorted consorts–individuals like Robert de Saint Loup and his prostitute mistress Rachel, the Baron de Charlus, and the Prince de Borodino. The narrator becomes a party to the wit and manners of the Guermantes drawing room, an important playground for Parisian society interested in the latest theatrical triumph and the progress of the Dreyfus case.



‘
In Search of Lost Time ‘ is composed by seven magnificent volumes:

– Volume One: ‘Swann’s Way’

– Volume Two: ‘In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower’

– Volume Three: ‘The Guermantes Way’

– Volume Four: ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’

– Volume Five: ‘The Prisoner’

– Volume Six: ‘The Fugitive’

– Volume Seven: ‘Time Regained’