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Cynthia asked this question about Remembrance of Things Past: Volume I - Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove:
Is this the best English translation? or is there another?
Lucy Day Werts .
This question is referring to the Scott Moncrieff translation that was edited by Terence Kilmartin. There are other versions, but it's not clear whic…more.
This question is referring to the Scott Moncrieff translation that was edited by Terence Kilmartin. There are other versions, but it's not clear which one is "best".

There are multiple versions of the Scott Moncrieff translation, all still available:

· the original Scott Moncrieff translation
· THIS version, edited by Terence Kilmartin
· a later version edited by Terence Kilmartin and then DJ Enright
· an annotated version edited by William C. Carter (still ongoing as of Feb 2024)

There's a more recent version published by Penguin. Different translators worked on different volumes. Lydia Davis translated Volume 1: Swann's Way for the Penguin project.

Even more recently, there's a completely new translation being published by Oxford University Press (one volume was published in 2023).

Scott Moncrieff's translation is widely considered monumental, but also widely considered to be flawed. Opinions differ as to whether the revised versions are consistently better, although they had better source texts to work from. Some people prefer the Penguin texts, while some find the project or some of its contributors to be unsuitable in some way.

In the end, choosing a translation is a matter of personal taste.

For information on the available translations and editions of In Search of Lost Time (originally known in English as Remembrance of Things Past), including book covers, ISBNS, pagecounts, and links to reviews and relevant articles, visit We Love Translations: World Literature in English.

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Remembrance of Things Past
by Marcel Proust
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