The first masterpiece of French literature, The Song Of Roland, was written in the Middle Ages. It is based on an historical incident in Charlemagne's retreat from Spain in 778.This is a great French epic poem of the Middle Ages. If one enjoys suspense, intense drama, riveting action, chivalry, battles, and honor, then one would most surely enjoy this well written and famous epic of Western Canon. One could easily understand how this song was sung and told from generation to genera...

The Charterhouse of Parma chronicles the adventures of the young Italian nobleman Fabrice del Dongo from his birth in 1798 to his death. Fabrice spends his early years in his family’s castle on Lake Como, while most of the rest of the novel is set in a fictionalized Parma (both locations are in modern-day Italy).The book begins with the French army sweeping into Milan and stirring up the sleepy region of Lombardy, which was allied with Austria. Fabrice grows up surrounded by intrig...

Serafino is a typical Pirandellian anti-hero, a spectator rather than a participant in the tragi-comedy of human existence. Indeed he has the perfect job for it, that of a film cameraman. Serafino is an observer, an impersonal tool of a new industry based on make-believe. All he has to do is turn the handle of his camera and watch. He has no part in what is going on and is so removed from life that the mauling of an actor by a tiger cannot deflect him from filming the action. The Notebooks...

In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past (French: A la recherche du temps perdu) is a semi-autobiographical novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its extended length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine". The title In Search of Lost Time has gained in popularity since D.J. Enright's 1992 revision of the classic translation of C.K. Scott-Moncrieff and Terence Kilmar...

"In Search of Lost Time" is a novel in seven volumes. The novel began to take shape in 1909. Proust continued to work on it until his final illness in the autumn of 1922 forced him to break off. Proust established the structure early on, but even after volumes were initially finished he kept adding new material, and edited one volume after another for publication. The last three of the seven volumes contain oversights and fragmentary or unpolished passages as they existed in draft form at ...

The song of Roland stands as one of the greatest epic poems in medieval literature, reflecting themes of loyalty, heroism, and sacrifice within a world shaped by faith and warfare. Set during Charlemagne's campaign in Spain, the narrative unfolds against a backdrop of political intrigue and religious conflict, portraying the courage and devotion of the warriors who fight under his command. The story opens with the mounting tension between the Franks and their adversaries, as the ruler of S...

Swann’s Way is one of the preeminent novels of childhood – a sensitive boy’s impressions of his family and neighbors, all brought dazzlingly back to life years later by the famous taste of a madeleine. The first volume of the work that established Proust as one of the finest voices of the modern age – satirical, skeptical, confiding, and endlessly varied in his response to the human condition – Swann’s Way also stands on its own as a perfect rendering of a life in art, of the past recreate...

The novel is set in the fictional Massachusetts town of Durham shortly after World War I. The Pentland family is rich and part of the upper class, but their world is rapidly changing. The old Congregational church the Pentlands long favored has disbanded as more and more WASPs have left Durham, replaced by immigrant Roman Catholics with very different religious customs. The Pentlands once ruled upper-class society in Durham, and still do. But even upper-class society is changing: Many of t...

Swann’s Way is the first volume (of 7) in Marcel Proust’s monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past; or In Search of Lost Time) that was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. His most prominent work, it is known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine."Begun in 1909, Remembrance of Things Past consists o...

Serafino is a typical Pirandellian anti-hero, a spectator rather than a participant in the tragi-comedy of human existence. Indeed he has the perfect job for it, that of a film cameraman. Serafino is an observer, an impersonal tool of a new industry based on make-believe. All he has to do is turn the handle of his camera and watch. He has no part in what is going on and is so removed from life that the mauling of an actor by a tiger cannot deflect him from filming the action. The Notebooks...

Now in a convenient eBook bundle, this Modern Library edition provides the most authoritative, critically acclaimed translation of Marcel Proust’s masterpiece in six volumes, In Search of Lost Time, which includes Swann’s Way, Within a Budding Grove, The Guermantes Way, Sodom and Gomorrah, The Captive, The Fugitive, and Time Regained.Graham Greene considered Marcel Proust “the greatest novelist of the twentieth century, just as Tolstoy wa...

This dense, daunting and ultimately rewarding book is volume three of Proust's epic A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Here, as always, the reader again wades chest-deep into Proust's ornate language (sticking, here, to C. K. Scott Moncrieff's canonical translation) and intricate reflections upon life and society around the turn of the 20th century. As one grows familiar with Proust the man and the writer, and as one becomes hypnotized by the legendary length and language of the writing, the b...