About the Society

The Proust Society of America is a permanent program of The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction. Established in 1997, the Society's mission is to encourage the reading, study and enjoyment of the works of Marcel Proust (1871-1922), whose primary achievement, À la recherche du temps perdu, continues to be considered by most critics as one of the world's great works of fiction, almost a century after its composition was begun.
The Society presents several lectures for the public, which are free to Proust members, holds an annual dinner to commemorate Proust's birthday, and sends additional information through its regular e-mail list.

The Society now hosts three reading discussion groups at the Library. Group I is for people reading Proust for the first time. Group II is for people who have read Proust at least once, and Group III offers a much closer reading for those further advanced.

The Proust Society Discussion Groups

The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction is pleased to announce the rebirth of Proust Reading Groups I and II. Starting in September of 2006 each group will start anew on their study of the Random House edition of Remembrance of Things Past. Both groups will follow the same reading schedule of approximately 100 pages per month, when the groups arrive at the last volume, the readings will slow down to 50 pages per month. The entire process will take four long delicious years.

Group I meets at 5:30pm the first Wednesday of every month.

Group II meets at 5:30pm the third Thursday of every month.

Group III meets at 5:30pm the first Tuesday of every month.

A Proust Society Membership is required for registration. Membership to the Proust Society includes full membership to the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction.

Click here to see the reading list for Proust Groups I and II

The Proust Society Annual Lectures

1997 Phyllis Rose, "The Year of Reading Proust"

1998 Mary Ann Caws, "Art in À la recherche du temps perdu"

1999 Andre Aciman, "The Proustian Stroke"

2000 William C. Carter, "The Vast Structure of Recollection: From Life to Literature"

2001 The Marcel Proust Film Festival and Panel Discussion

2002 Roger Shattuck, "Snobbery and Slumming in Proust's Novel"

2003 Lydia Davis, "Hammers and Hoofbeats: Rhythm and Structure in the Sentences of Swann's Way"

2004 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, "The Weather in Proust"

2006 Richard Howard

2007 Evelyne Bloch-Dano on Madame Proust

The Annual Proust Birthday Dinner Talk

1999 Shirley King, "Dining with Monsieur Proust"

2000 Valerie Steele, "Proust and Fashion"

2001 Anka Muhlstein, "Proust and Homosexuality"

2002 Alexandra Leaf, "Dining in the Proust Years"

2003 Dr. Mark Calkins, "Dilaté à la limite de la satisfaction: Involuntary Memory and the "Birth" of the Novel"

Other Lectures

2006 Joan T. Rosasco, "Proust's Wager"

Click here to read the text of Ms. Rosasco's paper. (PDF)

Become a Member of the Proust Society

"She (Marcel's mother) sent for one of those squat plump little cakes called "petites madeleines," which look as though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell … I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure invaded my senses..."