VOLUME II : Diplomatic transcription

For the first time in the history of publishing Proust manuscripts, the transcription will be diplomatic, i.e.: respect the writing's topography. It will be exhaustive and use the greatest fidelity but will not seek to compete with the photographic precision of the reproduction.

Using the diagram of text units, you can easily read large parts of the manuscript continuously. For the first time, it will also be possible to check the transcription's validity by comparing it with the reproduction and, inversely, it is possible to read the manuscript directly in the reproduction using the transcript as a deciphering aid when necessary. As a given sheet is given the same pagination in both Volume I and II, switching between them is simplified.

In addition to an introduction that positions the cahier in the general context of its creation, a detailed historical and critical annotation is included which is indispensable for understanding the many references and illusions which constitute the Proust encyclopaedia. A genetic annotation is also included which is intended to:

• elucidate all the references, from the most explicit to the most obscure, that Proust makes to his other manuscripts

• identify as accurately as possible the displacements, restarts and re-writes which occur from one manuscript to another.

These notes will be based on over thirty years of study of Proust creation which has mainly been conducted by the Institut des Textes et Manuscrits modernes of the CNRS and in Bulletin d’Informations proustiennes (Publisher: Bernard Brun). It still intends to add considerably to this work because, for the first time, the study of the genetic phenomena will be conducted on a body of systematic and uniform transcriptions.

VOLUME II :

• Editor's note

• List of abbreviations and uses. Concordance of the numbers of Cahiers 1 to 75 with the references for new French acquisitions by the French national Library. Inventory of other manuscripts conserved in the Proust collection or other collections of Proust manuscripts. Comment on the pagination, especially sheets and fragments of sheets cut out, torn out or fallen out and put back in place in this edition

• Introduction, bibliography and list of precedent transcriptions

• Transcription protocol

• Diplomatic transcription

• Historical, critical and genetic notes

• Analysis based on the diagram of text units (Volume II)

• Index of genetic links

• Index of names of people, characters, places and works

If you take out a standing order to the series Marcel Proust. Cahiers 1 à 75 de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, you will benefit from a special price of €190/US$275.50 on the first Cahier (54). Offer valid until 15 October 2008.

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Brepols Publishers