Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (1675-1755), is later revealed to be Swann's favourite writer. A soldier and a diplomat, Saint-Simon's memoirs are full of gossip, character sketches and insights into his times.

A medieval miracle play written by Rutebeuf around 1216, referring to the story of St Theophilus of Adana, who made a pact with the devil and then repudiated it.

These are all novels by the French nineteenth century writer George Sand, whose real name was Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant (1804-1876).

This is directly lifted from Proust's own life. His grandmother would line his bedroom walls with pictures of scenes made famous in paintings.

Raffaello Sanzio Morghen (1758-1833) was an Italian engraver. For a long time, before mass travel and photography, engravings such as this were the only way people could see art from outside of their own country.

Usually translated as The Country Waif, this is a rather inappropriate choice for a mother to read to her over-affectionate son as it deals with a quasi-incestuous relationship between an orphan and a woman who befriends him.