“Indifference to the suffering one causes is the terrible and permanent form of cruelty”. November 18 will mark the centenary of the death of Marcel Proust. For the occasion, Plon editions announced on Friday that they would reissue the writer’s prolific correspondence in November in the format of a five-volume luxury box set, which will include an afterword by biographer Jean-Yves Tadié and facsimiles of some handwritten letters.
“This goldsmith’s work was published by Plon editions in 21 volumes between 1970 and 1993”, recalled the publishing house in a press release. This reissue is therefore a first for twenty years.
The five-volume box set, sold for 445 euros (launch price for the first three months), is due out on November 3. The print run is 2,000 copies and the five volumes will be available individually for 99 euros.
Letters found
This monumental work was the life’s work of an American scholar, Philip Kolb, who died in 1992. He patiently went to see everyone he thought had letters from the writer. Supplemented with letters found since then, the new edition is presented by Thierry Laget, another Proust specialist who will also publish a beautiful book on Proust and the arts (Hazan editions) in October.
5,000 letters collected
In addition to his novel cycle In Search of Lost Time, Proust was a prolific letter writer and much appreciated by his contemporaries. Philip Kolb had amassed over 5,000 letters, which spanned over 10,000 pages.
This correspondence enabled Plon to launch the La Prestigious collection, which later included the diary of the painter Eugène Delacroix and the correspondence of Queen Marie-Antoinette.