Swann's Way Marcel Proust

The first six volumes were first translated into English by the Scotsman C. K. Scott Moncrieff under the title Remembrance of Things Past, a phrase taken from Shakespeare's Sonnet 30; this was the first translation of the Recherche into another language. The individual volumes were Swann's Way, in two books (1922), Within a Budding Grove, in two books (1924), The Guermantes Way, in two books (1925), Cities of the Plain, in two books (1927), The Captive (1929), and The Sweet Cheat Gone (1930). The final volume, Le Temps retrouvé, was initially published in English in the UK as Time Regained (1931), translated by Stephen Hudson (a pseudonym of Sydney Schiff), and in the US as The Past Recaptured (1932) in a translation by Frederick Blossom. There were thus eleven books in the original English translation. Although cordial with Scott Moncrieff, Proust grudgingly remarked in a letter that Remembrance eliminated the correspondence between Temps perdu and Temps retrouvé (Painter, 352). Terence Kilmartin revised the Scott Moncrieff translation in 1981, using the new French edition of 1954. An additional revision by D. J. Enright—that is, a revision of a revision—was published by the Modern Library in 1992. It is based on the "La Pléiade" edition of the French text (1987–89), and rendered the title of the novel more literally as In Search of Lost Time. It also includes an index/concordance to the novel compiled by Terence Kilmartin that was published in 1983 as the Reader's Guide to the Remembrance of Things Past. The guide contains four indices: fictional characters from the novels; actual persons; places; and themes.

In 1995, Penguin undertook a fresh translation based on the "La Pléiade" French text (published in 1987–89) of In Search of Lost Time by a team of seven different translators overseen by editor Christopher Prendergast. The six volumes were published in Britain under the Allen Lane imprint in 2002, each volume under the name of a separate translator, the first volume being American writer Lydia Davis, and the others under English translators and one Australian, James Grieve. The first four volumes were published in the US under the Viking imprint as hardcover editions in 2003–2004, while the entire set is available in paperback under the Penguin Classics imprint.

Both the Modern Library and Penguin translations provide a detailed plot synopsis at the end of each volume. The last volume of the Modern Library edition, Time Regained, also includes Kilmartin's "A Guide to Proust", a set of four indexes covering the (fictional) characters, (real) persons, places (both real and fictional), and themes in the novel. The Modern Library volumes include a handful of endnotes, and alternative versions of some of the novel's famous episodes. The Penguin volumes each provide an extensive set of brief, non-scholarly endnotes that help identify cultural references perhaps unfamiliar to contemporary English readers. Reviews that discuss the merits of both translations can be found online at the Observer, the Telegraph, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, TempsPerdu.com, and Reading Proust.

Since 2013, Yale University Press has been publishing a new revision of Scott Moncrieff's translation, edited and annotated by William C. Carter, at the rate of one volume every two or three years.

After a partial translation of the first volume in 2018, since 2023 Oxford University Press is publishing a new, complete translation by Brian Nelson, edited by Adam Watt.[29]

Scott Moncrieff and subsequent revisions

• Remembrance of Things Past, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff. London: Chatto & Windus.
  • Ten books: Swann's Way, in two books (1922), Within a Budding Grove, in two books (1924), The Guermantes Way, in two books (1925), Cities of the Plain, in two books (1927), The Captive (1929), and The Sweet Cheat Gone (1930).
• Remembrance of Things Past, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, with Andreas Mayor (Time Regained). New York: Random House, 1981 (3 vols). ISBN 0-394-71243-9
  • Three books: Vol. 1: Swann's Way; Within a Budding Grove—Vol. 2: The Guermantes Way; Cities of the Plain—Vol. 3: The Captive; The Fugitive; Time Regained
• In Search of Lost Time, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, with Andreas Mayor (Time Regained). Revised by D.J. Enright. London: Chatto and Windus, New York: The Modern Library, 1992. Based on the French "La Pléiade" edition (1987–89). ISBN 0-8129-6964-2
  • Six books: Swann's Way—Within a Budding Grove—The Guermantes Way—Sodom and Gomorrah—The Captive; The Fugitive—Time Regained.
• In Search of Lost Time, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, edited and annotated by William C. Carter (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2021, 2023).
  • In progress: Swann's Way ISBN 978-0300185430; In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower ISBN 978-0300185423; The Guermantes Way ISBN 978-0300186192; Sodom and Gomorrah ISBN 978-0300186208; The Captive and The Fugitive ISBN 978-0300186215

Penguin Proust

• In Search of Lost Time (General Editor: Christopher Prendergast), translated by Lydia Davis, James Grieve, Mark Treharne, John Sturrock, Carol Clark, Peter Collier, & Ian Patterson. London: Allen Lane, 2002 (6 vols). Based on the French "La Pléiade" edition (1987–89), except The Fugitive, which is based on the 1954 definitive French edition. The first four volumes have been published in New York by Viking, 2003–04.
  • Six books: The Way by Swann's (in the U.S., Swann's Way) ISBN 0-14-243796-4; In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower ISBN 0-14-303907-5; The Guermantes Way ISBN 0-14-303922-9; Sodom and Gomorrah ISBN 0-14-303931-8; The Prisoner; and The Fugitive – Finding Time Again.

Oxford Proust

• The Swann Way by Brian Nelson (Oxford, 2023)

Individual translators

Volume 1

• A Search for Lost Time: Swann's Way by James Grieve (Australian National University, 1982)
• Swann's Way by Richard Howard (Macmillan, 1992)
• The Way by Swann's (UK) / Swann's Way (US) by Lydia Davis (Allen Lane, 2002)
• Swann in Love by Brian Nelson (Oxford, 2018) - partial translation of Volume 1
• Swann in Love by Lucy Raitz (Pushkin, 2022) - partial translation of Volume 1
• The Swann Way by Brian Nelson (Oxford, 2023)

Volumes 2–5

• In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by James Grieve (Allen Lane, 2002)
• The Guermantes Way by Mark Treharne (Allen Lane, 2002)
• Sodom and Gomorrah by John Sturrock (Allen Lane, 2002)
• The Captive by Carol Clark (Allen Lane, 2002)

Volume 6

• Albertine Gone by Terence Kilmartin (Chatto & Windus, 1989)
• The Fugitive by Peter Collier (Allen Lane, 2002)

Volume 7

• Time Regained by Stephen Hudson (Sydney Schiff) (Chatto & Windus, 1931)
• The Past Recaptured by Frederick Blossom (Random House, 1932)
• The Past Recaptured by Andreas Mayor (Random House, 1970)
• Finding Time Again by Ian Patterson (Allen Lane, 2002)
• Time Regained by David Whiting (Naxos AudioBooks, 2012)