Listening to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, (Maybe) the Longest Audio Book Ever Made

I’m impressed by the under­tak­ing. Neville Jason and Nax­os Audio Books have com­plet­ed an unabridged audio ver­sion of Proust’s epic, sev­en-part nov­el, Remem­brance of Things Past. Proust pub­lished the first vol­ume, Swan­n’s Way, one hun­dred years ago, in 1913, and com­plet­ed the last vol­ume, Time Regained, four­teen years lat­er, in 1927. By that time, Proust had a mas­ter­piece on his hands — a very long mas­ter­piece. The clas­sic (avail­able in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks) spans some 3,000 pages and con­tains more than 1.5 mil­lion words. Until now, Remem­brance of Things Past has nev­er been avail­able in an unabridged audio for­mat, per­haps because it would amount to the longest audio book ever made (or some­thing approach­ing that). But Neville Jason has pulled it off, pro­duc­ing a 151-hour record­ing that’s now avail­able on Audible.com. Below, we’ve pro­vid­ed sev­en free audio excerpts (one from each vol­ume), and if you care to sign up for Audi­ble’s 30-Day Free Tri­al, you can down­load any one vol­ume for free. NB: Audi­ble is an Amazon.com sub­sidiary, and we’re a mem­ber of their affil­i­ate pro­gram. If Proust isn’t your cup of tea, you can find many oth­er great works in our col­lec­tion of 630 Free Audio Books.

Swan­n’s Way 

With­in a Bud­ding Grove

The Guer­mantes Way 

Sodom and Gomor­rah

The Cap­tive 

The Fugi­tive 

Time Regained

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Mon­ty Python’s “Sum­ma­rize Proust Com­pe­ti­tion” on the 100th Anniver­sary of Swann’s Way

Arthur Conan Doyle Fills Out the Ques­tion­naire Made Famous By Mar­cel Proust (1899)