Proust’s Duchess

Praise

“The great strength of this literary history from Weber lies in its sheer accumulation of detail, which paints a granular picture of the ultra-wealthy milieu that provided the subject matter for Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu…Weber reveals the darker side of a culture that contributed little to the larger society while spending lavishly on its own whims…The final impression is one of a topical warning against the accumulation of vast wealth for its own sake. Readers will be impressed when they reach the end of this lengthy book, nearly every page of which offers factual riches, served up with precise and witty prose.”
—Publishers Weekly 
 
 
“A captivating triple biography…Focusing on three alluring women who were objects of Proust’s fascination, Weber portrays in rich detail a French aristocracy threatened by profound social and political change…Weber offers intimate details of their love affairs, betrayals, friendships, and rivalries; their worries over money and status…She recounts vividly the plush ambience, dress, and décor of their châteaux and palaces as well as the parties and salons peopled by royalty, artists, and writers who mesmerized the young, aspiring, impressionable Proust. A palpable, engrossing portrait of three extraordinary women and their tempestuous, fragile world.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
 
“Thanks to her astonishing, prize-worthy research, Caroline Weber knows more about the three real women Proust modelled the Duchesse de Guermantes on than the mythologizing Proust himself did. This is social history at its best.”
—Edmund White, author of Marcel Proust: A Life.
 
 
“A necessary companion for lovers of Proust’s vast melancholy vision, Weber’s equally vast social history explores the late 19th Parisian ‘monde’ of salons and masked balls, lit by the meticulous, mad obsession of its most elite residents to hold all the forces of the modern world at bay.”
—Tom Reiss, author of The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
 
 
“This delicious feast of a book combines narrative flair, literary scholarship, original new material, a sharp, flamboyant eye for society and literature high and low, a style as elegant and playful as its subjects—three remarkable women in late 19th Century Paris who are accompanied onstage by a cast of writers, from Proust to Maupassant,  princes,  actresses, politicians, journalists, artists,  courtesans,  to create a superb, original  and irresistible study of a time and a place and the great art it created.”
—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs and The Moscow Trilogy of Novels
 
 
“Better than Proust.”
—Cécile David-Weill, author of The Suitors and Crush