Marcel Proust’s manuscripts sold at action for EUR 750,000

Works from the archive of French novelist Marcel Proust were sold at an auction in Paris for EUR 750,000, Sotheby’s announced.

The highest price (EUR 132,500) went to one of the most important lots in the sale: a very early draft of a passages from Du côté de chez Swann, estimated at 30,000 to 50,000 euros.

One of the most fought-over lots, estimated at 1,000 to 1,500 euros, was a pencil portrait of Marcel Proust on his deathbed by Jean-Bernard Eschemann, which finally fetched EUR 45,000.

Letters sent to Proust by French publisher Gaston Gallimard sold for EUR 93,750.

The manuscripts and other items were presented at the auction by Proust’s great-niece Marie-Claude Mante.

Proust’s (1871-1922) most prominent work is In Search of Lost Time, a monumental seven-volume novel, published over the course of 14 years. The work has had a deep impact on world literature.

Marcel Proust

manuscripts of Marcel Proust

Sothebys

Sotheby s

Du cote de chez Swann

Jean Bernard Eschemann

Gaston Gallimard

Marie Claude Mante

In Search of Lost Time