The Mysterious Correspondent

Throughout Proust's life, nine of his short stories remained unseen - the writer never spoke of them. Why did he choose not to publish them along with the others? One possible answer is that he was developing his themes in preparation for his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time; another is that the stories were too audacious - too near to life - for the censorious society of the time.

In these stories, published here for the first time, we find an intimate picture of a young author full of darkness and melancholy, longing to reveal his true self to the world.