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Proust, Class, and Nation

Extensive new research carried out over seven years fed into this book, which one reviewer in France sees as unveiling a new side of Proust (‘un “autre Proust”’). The book explores microtextually how Proust’s voluminous work connects crucially with ideological and political debate of his day. Delivering such a study required painstaking analysis of a complex corpus – Proust’s published fiction, his bulky correspondence, the contemporaneous press, and the writings of his literary contemporaries (Ruskin, D’Haussonville, Barrès, Bourget et al.). This enabled Hughes to make important new critical claims regarding Proust's connection with the life of the Third French Republic.