Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff - Remembrance of Things Past

Remembrance of Things Past

Scott Moncrieff published the first volume of his Proust translation in 1922, and continued until his death in January 1930, at which time he was working on the final volume of the novel. His choice of the title Remembrance of Things Past, by which Proust's novel was known in English for many years, is not a literal translation of the original French. It is, in fact, taken from the second line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 30: "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past".

In a letter written on his deathbed in 1922, Proust congratulated Scott Moncrieff on his remarkable translation, but objected to the lack of ambiguity in the title: "Temps Perdu" meaning, in French both Lost Time and Wasted Time. However he apologised warmly for scarcely understanding English himself.