On Reading

Marcel Proust's fiction is threaded through with evidence of his belief in the importance of reading. A la recherche du temps perdu is rich with references to writers and books that were important to his own style of writing and to his approach to the world. By reading great authors, Proust contends, we not only learn of great ideas, but are enriched by the fruits of the world's most inspirational minds. In particular, Proust admired Ruskin, and in translating Ruskin's works into French, he provided copious annotations about the relationship between the writer and his readers. This book includes some of those annotations, along with a key Ruskin essay, 'Of Kings' Treasuries', and some of Proust's own writings about reading, collected in one volume for the first time.