Author. He was a French author, who wrote the monumental novel "A la recherche du temps perdu," the longest novel in the world. The novel was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927 with the last three being published posthumously by his brother. He hated the title "Remembrance of Things Past," which was given to his masterpiece in the English translation; later, the English translation was "In Search of Lost Time." The "hero" in this piece is transparently the author who conjures up his early childhood with the taste of a madeleine biscuit dipped in tea. Hundreds upon hundreds of pages follow as the author tries to reconcile (objective) reality and (subjective) memory, while examining the mechanics of the upper strata of French society. He was born Valentine Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust during one of the most violent times in France's history with the fall of the French aristocrats and the rise of the middle-class. His father was a well-known, published physician, who wanted his son to have a steady and successful career. His father was Roman Catholic and his mother came from a wealthy Jewish family. He was a sickly child with lung problems, who did not attend school regularly yet, he received an award in literature in his last year with his mother's home schooling. Although he was very close to his mother, he disagreed with his father about many things, thus he left home early removing himself from his family's expected life style. He served in the army from 1882 to 1889, and he studied law at École des Sciences Politiques during 1891 to 1893. A brilliant conversationalist, he moved socially in the circles of the Parisian aristocrats. Many thought he was suffering from hypochondria, but he was really too ill to maintain a career, yet he was published in magazines and later translated books to have an income. During this time he started the autobiographical novel "Jean Santeui," which he never finished. The three-volume unfinished novel was published in 1952. His writing style was unusual with one sentence being pages long, with little plot or drama. After his brother married and left his family's apartment, his parents soon died within a couple of years of each other; this impacted him greatly. He became depressed and spent two months in a sanitarium resting. At this point, he returned to his family's apartment after 1905 with a considerable inheritance. As the years passed, his health continued to decline spending the last three years of his life as a recluse in his bedroom, sleeping during the day and writing his novel at night. He died of pneumonia with a pulmonary abscess. His obituary was written by Romanian Princess Elizabeth Bibesco, as his goddaughter Priscilla was her daughter. His book, "In Search of Lost Time," has been translated into English three times with the last being 1992 but none had any great success. Finding all seven volumes in English is rare. Most recently Yale University Press has begun to print one volume at a time of "In Search of Lost Time" with the first volume being in 2013, the second 2015, and third 2018. A French four-hour made-for-TV-miniseries covering all seven books was released in 2011.