Marcel Proust’s memories fetch €1.24m at auction

The personal archives of the French writer Marcel Proust sold at auction at Sotheby’s in Paris on 31 May for a total of €1.24m with premium (against an estimate of €520,000 to €740,000), demonstrating the appeal of nostalgia—but this would probably not be a surprise to the author of the seven-volume series In Search of Lost Time (1913-27). The 120 objects, left to Proust’s brother Robert after he died in 1922, were put up for sale by his great-grandniece, Patric