“The most beautiful tribute to Proust. It’s deeply moving. Stéphane Manel’s drawing have a crepuscular beauty.” —Olivia de Lamberterie, Télématin

“Céleste Albaret’s memoirs make the ‘great man’ feel simple and close–and even more so in the edition published by Seghers.” —Le Monde des livres

“Infinite pleasure. It’s beautiful and moving, sad and incredible, even fascinating–in one word: Proustian.” —Paris Match

“An original gateway into the Proustian world.” —L’Humanité

“The most endearing book about Proust, elevated by Stéphanie Manel’s delicate stroke.” —Le Parisien Week-End

“The most beautiful book on Proust.” —La Dépêche du Midi

“A must-have for lovers of literature” —France Bleu

“A prodigious tour de force.” —La Libre Belgique

“A magnificient book.” —Christine Angot

Monsieur Proust, a classic reprinted many times

Céleste Albaret was Marcel Proust’s housekeeper from 1913 until his death in 1922. Just arrived from her native Lozère to live in Paris with her husband, Proust’s chauffeur, she joined the writer’s service for menial tasks. She ended up dedicating her life to him, embracing his reclusive life to the point of participating in the elaboration of À la recherche du temps perdu (taking notes under dictation, pasting her additions on the famous “béquets”). The woman who has inspired the character of Françoise in La Recherche would watch over Proust to the very end. With the help of Georges Belmont, who collected and edited her memories, she published Monsieur Proust in 1973, which has since become a classic.

This moving account is a unique document of Proust’s daily life in his last years and of the conditions under which he wrote his work.

In an adaptation that offers the quintessence of Céleste’s text, and thanks to Stéphane Manel’s drawings, we follow the young woman into the intimacy of boulevard Haussmann and rue Hamelin to discover the incredible ceremonial of Proust’s days and nights. From the kitchen to the bedroom, we witness the routines as well as the visits, the outings and the monumental task of writing. Everything comes to life in this book, which delivers the sensory keys to the upside-down world that Proust made his kingdom, a world where the boundaries between reality and fiction were deliberately blurred.