“Which English translation of Swann’s Way should I read?”
Swann’s Way is the first volume in Marcel Proust’s seven-volume novel In Search of Lost Time, previously known as Remembrance of Things Past.
There will be people who tell you that you simply must read the entire thing. But in my opinion, what you do with your (ahem) time is none of their business. If you read volume 1 and then decide to read the whole thing, that’s great. If not, that’s great too.
In fact, some people read only the part of Volume 1 called Swann in Love (see Other Books below).
The translation choices you have for Volume 1 (listed below) are slightly different from the translation choices you have if you already know you want to read all the volumes.
Swann’s Way: Translations in English
These are all in print.
- 1922 – C.K. Scott Moncrieff (public domain)
- 1981 – Scott Moncrieff revised by Terence Kilmartin (Vintage)
- 1982 – James Grieve (NYRB)
- 1992 – Scott Moncrieff revised by D.J. Enright (Vintage, Modern Library)
- 1995 – Lydia Davis (Penguin)
- 2013 – Scott Moncrieff revised by William C. Carter (Yale)
- 2023 – Brian Nelson edited by Adam Watt (Oxford)
Who was Scott Moncrieff?
Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff, surname “Scott Moncrieff”, was a Scottish writer, translator, and poet.
About the Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann’s Way
Translation and Literature: “Scott Moncrieff s First Translation” by Peter France
“Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (1889-1930) is one of the most visible of English-language translators. His virtually single-handed translation of Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu, done in a mere eight years from 1921 to 1929, probably had almost as great an impact on English-speaking culture as Constance Garnetťs work on the Russian novel. It has been criticized (as inaccurate, too flowery, dated, etc.) and twice revised, but it survives to compete effectively with the more recent six-handed Penguin version.”
» About the Scott Moncrieff translation of In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past)
Extract from the Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann’s Way
Get the Norton Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann's Way
Edited and with an introduction, note and annotations by Sussana Lee.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780393919165, 640 pages).
Get the Dover Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann's Way
Includes a short introduction (about a page).
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780486421230, 416 pages).
Get the Dover Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann's Way
Includes a short introduction (about a page).
Available as an ebook.
Get the AmazonClassics Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann's Way
Includes a bit of information about the author and translator at the end.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9781503902008, 512 pages).
Get the AmazonClassics Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann's Way
Includes a bit of information about the author and translator at the end.
Available as an ebook.
Get the Standard Ebooks Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann's Way
Free! Standard Ebooks are made from Gutenberg ebooks, but they've been cleaned up a bit to be more user-friendly and esthetically pleasing.
Available as an ebook.
Get the Gutenberg Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann's Way
Free! (That's an autogenerated cover.)
Available as an ebook.
Who was Terence Kilmartin?
Terrence ‘Terry’ Kevin Kilmartin was a translator and the literary editor of The Observer.
About the Kilmartin version of Swann’s Way
Kilmartin’s version is an edit of Scott Moncrieff’s existing English translation. It includes a note on the translation, explanatory endnotes and a synopsis.
New York Times: “Proust Re-Englished” by Richard Howard
“Within the limits of his corrective enterprise, Mr. Kilmartin has done a conscientious and illuminating job. I can barely imagine the skills – beyond the dreams of dentistry – which such a labor of reconstruction must have demanded…. Major and minor, Mr. Kilmartin’s revisions occur almost sentence by sentence, always with great pertinacity…. He also offers at the end of each huge volume a valuable thematic synopsis, as well as a limited but extremely useful series of notes to explain literary and historical references -and inconsistencies – which occur throughout the text. Thirty notes for each thousand pages of a work published half a century ago is a modest enough apparatus, but an immediately helpful one, and I believe all new readers of Proust in English are in an inestimably advantageous position compared with their predecessors.”
The New York Review: “Kilmartin’s Way” by Roger Shattuck
“Definitive it is not. Vastly improved, yes. I take my hat off to Kilmartin for accepting the thankless task of cleaning up after a great translator, knowing that he would have to take the blame for all remaining weaknesses and would receive little credit for his contributions.”
Extract from the Kilmartin version of Swann’s Way
Get the Vintage Classics Scott Moncrieff and Kilmartin translation of Swann's Way
Contains a note on the translation by Kilmartin, endnotes, and a synopsis.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780679720096, 496 pages).
Get the Vintage Classics Scott Moncrieff and Kilmartin translation of Swann's Way
Contains a note on the translation by Kilmartin, endnotes, and a synopsis.
Available as an ebook (ISBN 9781101972359).
Who was James Grieve?
James Grieve was an Australian professor of French language and literature, an author and a translator.
Grieve’s translation of Volume 2 of In Search of Lost Time (“In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower”) was published as part of the Penguin series edited by Christopher Prendergast. He did not translate any other volumes.
About the Grieve version of Swann’s Way
It contains no translator’s introduction. There are a handful of footnotes.
The translation was originally published in Australia by the Australian National University in 1982. The current New York Review Books edition is from 2023.
The Paris Review: “I have Gone to Bed Early: Translating Proust”
Translator Richard Howard says, “[Grieve’s] lively translation is not very close to the French. It’s more like an improvisation on Proustian themes—and I don’t feel that’s what readers want. They want to read what Proust wrote. And as a translator, it seems to me, you have an obligation not to change, not to add … For instance, in that first sentence, Grieve adds the word “always”. I can’t see doing that. And throughout, Grieve adds, rewrites really.”
On the Seawall: “On Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, translated from the French by James Grieve” by Eric Vanderwall
“There is something refreshing in this minimalism and the way it permits the reader to encounter the novel as a self-contained fictional world, much as the first readers would have, rather than as a small component in a vast corpus of primary, secondary, and tertiary literature. This is a Swann’s Way unburdened of canonical status and cultural prestige, presented as just itself…. The publication of James Grieve’s translation of Swann’s Way by NYRB constitutes a welcome addition to the options for reading Proust in English. Its minimalist approach to textual notes allows readers to encounter Proust unimpeded by excessive critical apparatus, even though more detailed remarks from Grieve on his translation practices and the particular shortcomings in Scott Moncrieff he aimed to rectify would have been welcome. This volume gives readers new to Proust an approachable point of entry — a moderately long book not excessively bogged down in announcements of lofty cultural importance — and longtime readers a new position from which to interact with Proust.”
Extract from the Grieve version of Swann’s Way
Get the NYRB Classics Grieve translation of Swann's Way
Contains a brief note on the translation.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9781681376295, 464 pages).
Get the NYRB Classics Grieve translation of Swann's Way
Contains a brief note on the translation.
Available as an ebook (ISBN 9781681376301).
Who was D.J. Enright?
Dennis Joseph Enright was a British “Man of Letters.”
About the Enright version of Swann’s Way
Enright’s version is an edit of Kilmartin’s version of Scott Moncrieff’s existing English translation (not a new translation from French). The title page of the current Modern Library edition says “Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D. J. Enright.”
Contains a biographical note, notes on the translation, a synopsis, and endnotes.
The Guardian: “Reviving the dread deity” by Paul Davis
“[T]he only previous translation of the novel into English, by CK Scott Moncrieff, showered Proust’s text in “cascades of Edwardian purple prose”, some but not all of them staunched by Terence Kilmartin and DJ Enright in the “fully revised” version now reissued by Vintage to compete with [the Penguin translation]…. For those without French considering setting out on the Proustian journey, the Moncrieff/ Kilmartin/Enright translation, remains, in my view, the best available reading text.”
» About the Scott Moncrieff / Kilmartin / Enright translation of In Search of Lost Time
Extract from the Enright version of Swann’s Way
Get the Vintage Classics Scott Moncrieff and Enright translation of Swann's Way
Contains a note on the translation by Kilmartin, a note on the translation by Enright, and endnotes.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9781784878443, 544 pages).
Get the Modern Library Scott Moncrieff and Enright translation of Swann's Way
Introduction by Richard Howard. Includes a biographical note, a note by Terence Kilmartin on the translation, a note by D.J. Enright on the translation, endnotes, and a synopsis.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780375751547, 656 pages).
Get the Vintage Classics Scott Moncrieff and Enright translation of Swann's Way
Includes a biographical note, a note by Kilmartin on the translation, a note by Enright on the translation, endnotes, and a synopsis.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780099362210, 544 pages).
Get the Vintage Classics Scott Moncrieff and Enright translation of Swann's Way
Includes a biographical note, a note by Kilmartin on the translation, a note by Enright on the translation, endnotes, and a synopsis.
Available as an ebook (ISBN 9781409019237).
Who is Lydia Davis?
Lydia Davis is an American writer and translator. She has also translated Madame Bovary.
About the Davis version of Swann’s Way (The Way by Swann’s)
Contains an introductory essay, a detailed synopsis, and a few endnotes.
This seems to be the most talked-about translation of Swann’s Way. Visit my blog at spjg.com for a bunch of collected comments on Swann’s Way, translated by Lydia Davis.
Oxford University Press Blog: “Translating Proust Again” by Brian Nelson
“Her translation is marked by a determination to stay close to Proust’s original in every way, including the retention of the precise order of elements in a sentence.
New York Times: “Translating Proust: Doing it Swann’s way?” by Mary Blume
” ‘I think it’s inevitable and not bad that a certain foreignness should linger about the text,’ Davis says. ‘People have said about this one that it’s like reading French in English and I don’t mind that.’ ”
The Lydia Davis translation is part of a Penguin project involving multiple translators under editor Christopher Prendergast.
» About the Penguin Prendergast version of In Search of Lost Time
Extract from the Davis version of Swann’s Way (The Way by Swann’s)
Get the Penguin Modern Classics Davis translation of Swann's Way -or- The Way by Swann's
Introductrion and notes by Lydia Davis. Contains a general editor's preface by Christopher Prendergast. Includes endnotes and a synopsis.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780141180311, 496 pages).
Get the Penguin Modern Classics Davis translation of Swann's Way -or- The Way by Swann's
Introductrion and notes by Lydia Davis. Contains a general editor's preface by Christopher Prendergast. Includes endnotes and a synopsis.
Available as an ebook (ISBN 9780141914152).
Get the Penguin Classics Deluxe Davis translation of Swann's Way -or- The Way by Swann's
Introduction and notes by Lydia Davis. Contains a note on the translation, suggestions for further reading, endnotes, and a snyopsis.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780142437964, 496 pages).
Get the Penguin Classics Deluxe Davis translation of Swann's Way -or- The Way by Swann's
Introduction and notes by Lydia Davis. Contains a note on the translation, suggestions for further reading, endnotes, and a snyopsis.
Available as an ebook (ISBN 9781101501269).
Get the Penguin Drop Caps Davis translation of Swann's Way -or- The Way by Swann's
No introduction or notes or anything.
Available as a hardcover (ISBN 9780143124696, 496 pages).
Who is William C. Carter?
William C. Carter is an American professor emeritus specializing in French and an esteemed Proust scholar. He is the author of a biography of Proust (see Other Books).
About the Carter version of Swann’s Way
This is a revision and annotation of the Scott Moncrieff translation, not a new translation (and not a revision of the Kilmartin or Enright revisions).
Reading Proust: “The girls have flowered anew”
“There is scarcely a sentence that Mr. Carter hasn’t changed, always for the better and often getting closer to Proust’s phrasing…. Among Mr. Carter’s gifts to Americans, he has put the novel into our idiom…. As for Mr. Carter’s annotations, they appear on the same page as the text—hence the large format. This is often a convenience, compared to turning to the back of the book. But I sometimes found them distracting.”
Leaves in the Wind: “Thoughts In and Out of Season 5” by David Bentley Hart
“Carter’s version is the one to get for those readers who want to understand every reference, every passing detail, every incidental feature of the text. The novel is an ocean, but no person, place, or thing—however obscure, minor, or seemingly extraneous—escapes the nets of his commentary. Clearly it is all a work of love for Carter, and a monument to a life of scholarly dedication to the French literary canon, and to Proust in particular.”
» About the Carter version of In Search of Lost Time
FYI, the final volume of Carter’s version has not been published yet (as of February 2024).
Extract from the Carter version of Swann’s Way
Get the Yale Scott Moncrieff and Carter translation of Swann's Way
Introduction, notes, and synopsis by William C. Carter.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780300185430, 512 pages).
Get the Yale Scott Moncrieff and Carter translation of Swann's Way
Introduction, notes, and synopsis by William C. Carter.
Available as an ebook.
Who are Brian Nelson and Adam Watt?
Brian Nelson is a British translator and professor emeritus of French. He has translated many works by Emile Zola.
Adam Watt is a professor of French and comparative literature at Exeter. He wrote The Cambridge Introduction to Marcel Proust and a critical biography of Proust (see Other Books). His publications on Proust have appeared in English, French, German, Chinese, Danish, and Persian.
About the Nelson and Watt version of Swann’s Way (The Swann Way)
This is the only volume available from a new translation of In Search of Lost Time that is in the process of being published by Oxford. My understanding is that Brian Nelson and Adam Watt are editors of the project. For Volume 1, Brian Nelson did the translation and Adam Watt is the editor and the author of the introduction and notes. No other volumes have been published as of February 2024.
Volume 1 includes acknowledgments, a general editors’ preface (by Nelson and Watt), a translator’s note (by Nelson) , and an introduction, a note on the text, a select bibliography, a chronology of Marcel Proust, and endnotes (by Watt). The introduction thoughtfully warns readers that it reveals plot details.
The Sydney Morning Herald: “Why we just can’t forget Marcel Proust” by Yuri Cerqueira dos Anjos
“It is difficult to predict how this new translation will look as a whole. However, this first volume delivers a lot in terms of readability, which is definitely a good indication. Many translators in the past have associated Proust with an excessively elevated and ornate language…. Nelson retains Proust’s serpentine style without making it appear obscure…. Moreover, Nelson is able to seemingly transition between Proust’s wide range of voices…. His approach, supported by effective and precise explanatory endnotes, makes this version a compelling introduction to Proust’s masterpiece.”
» About the Nelson and Watt version of In Search of Lost Time
FYI: Only the first volume of the Nelson and Watt translation has been published so far (as of February 2024).
Extract from the Nelson and Watt version of Swann’s Way (The Swann Way)
Get the Oxford Nelson and Watt translation of The Swann Way
Translated by Brian Nelson. Includes a translator's note by Brian Nelson. Includes an introduction, note on the text, select bibliography, chronology, and endnotes by Adam Watt. Includes a general editors' preface by Nelson and Watt.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780198871521, 480 pages).
Get the Oxford Nelson and Watt translation of The Swann Way
Translated by Brian Nelson. Includes a translator's note by Brian Nelson. Includes an introduction, note on the text, select bibliography, chronology, and endnotes by Adam Watt. Includes a general editors' preface by Nelson and Watt.
Available as an ebook.
Online Study Guides
Did Richard Howard translate Swann’s Way?
No. But he started to!
NYT: “Howard’s Way” by Richard Bernstein
“And now [1988] he is embarking on a sort of crowning glory, a translator’s ascension of a literary Mount Everest. Over the next decade – or perhaps, if the work goes well, a mere seven or eight years – Howard is planning to produce a new translation of Marcel Proust’s great seven-volume novel of manners and sentiments…. [R]emembering Moncrieff, who died before completing his translation, Howard, in a fit of superstition, initially began his task with the concluding volume, before deciding to work conventionally from beginning to end…. He belongs to a small elite of what might be called world-class translators, a group that seems to be emerging, at least somewhat, from obscurity, their skills more recognized—and a bit better compensated—than they have been in the past…. He is a member of what might be considered the conventional school of translation, made up of translators who are knowledgeable about the languages translated both from and to.”
Wikipedia claims Macmillan published his translation in 1992, and Worldcat backs this up. However, as far as I can tell, no such book exists. However, as Lydia Davis mentions, a few pages were shared in The Paris Review.
The Yale Review: “Loaf or Hot-Water Bottle: Closely Translating Proust” by Lydia Davis
“Some people think that Richard Howard is translating the whole of the Proust or that he has translated it. In fact, Howard began the project back in 1988, but he did not go on. The first pages of his projected translation appeared in The Paris Review in 1989, and they were useful to me for comparison.”
The Paris Review: “From a New Translation of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time”
Paywalled article. 1989 interview of Richard Howard by George Plimpton. Contains Howard’s translation of the beginning of Combray.
The Paris Review: “I have Gone to Bed Early: Translating Proust” by Dan Piepenbring
This is a non-paywalled repeat of the 1989 interview. Does not include the sample pages.
Swann in Love
Swann’s Way has three parts. “Swann in Love” is Part 2, and has been published as a “stand-alone novella”. Three translations are listed below. There’s also a 1984 movie starring Jeremy Irons.
Oxford says: “Swann in Love is a brilliant, devastating novella that tells of infatuation, love, and jealousy. Set against the backdrop of Paris at the end of the nineteenth century, the story of Charles Swann illuminates the fragilities and foibles of human beings when in the grip of desire. Swann is a highly cultured man-about-town who is plunged into turmoil when he falls for a young woman called Odette de Crecy. The novel traces the progress of Swann’s emotions with penetrating exactitude as he encounters Odette at the regular gatherings in the salon of the Verdurins. His willful self-delusion is both poignant and comic, and his tormented feelings play out in scenes of high comedy amongst Odette’s socially pretentious circle.”
Get Swann in Love by Brian Nelson (translator) and Adam Watt (editor)
"Swann in Love, the second section of the first volume of Proust's multi-volume novel In Search of Lost Time, may be read as a brilliant self-contained novella. At the same time, it offers readers a perfect, short introduction to Proust. Includes an up-to-date bibliography, chronology of the author, and helpful explanatory notes."
Available as a paperback (ebook also available) (ISBN 9780198744894, 240 pages).
Get Swann in Love by Lucy Raitz (translator)
"Stunning new edition of the standalone novella from Proust’s great masterpiece – an intoxicatingly witty story of infatuation and jealousy."
Available as a paperback (ebook and hardcover also available) (ISBN 9781782278504, 256 pages).
Get Swann in Love by Scott Moncrieff (translator) and Terence Kilmartin (editor)
"Swann in Love is a study of sexual jealousy that forms a fully self-contained crucial component of the vast, unfolding structure of Proust's masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time."
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780648238874, 260 pages).
Get Swann in Love by Stephane Heuet (adapter and illustrator) and Arthur Goldhammer (translator)
Graphic novel version of Swann in Love.
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9781561635221, 48 pages).
Get Swann's Way by Stephane Heuet (adapter and illustrator) and Arthur Goldhammer (translator)
Graphic novel version of Swann's Way. There is also a graphic novel of Volume 2 (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, translated by Laura Marris), but no other volumes.
Available as a paperback (others also available) (ISBN 9781631490354, 240 pages).
Get Proust: Swann's Way (Landmarks of World Literature) by Sheila Stern
"Sheila Stern's study begins with a summary of the whole novel and goes on to give an account of the activity of reading as part of its subject-matter. Two chapters are devoted to Swann's Way itself, with close attention to the opening pages, and to such topics as memory, time, imagery and names. The book's reception in various Western literatures is discussed, and there is a guide to further reading."
Available as a paperback (ISBN 9780521315449, 148 pages).
What’s the best Swann’s Way translation?
It depends on what you’re looking for.
If you’re a traditionalist, and not afraid of Victorian effusiveness, try the version by Scott Moncrieff and Enright.
If you want lots of explanatory notes, get the annotated Scott Moncrieff version by William C. Carter.
If you want the most scrupulous modern translation of the “foreignizing” school of thought, get the one by Lydia Davis.
If you want the smoothest modern translation, give the rewrite by James Grieve a try.
What’s the best In Search of Lost Time translation?
There’s a separate page that lists and describes them!
Your thoughts on Swann’s Way?
Which translation(s) have you read? Which translation will you read? Let us know in the comments!