150th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF MARCEL PROUST  

Born in Paris in 1871 into a bourgeois family, Marcel Proust studied literature at the Sorbonne from which he graduated in 1895. He rubbed shoulders with writers and other artists in aristocratic salons, which aroused in him a great interest in writing. In 1907, he began writing his novel In Search of Lost Time, the first volume of which, entitled Swann’s Way, appeared in 1913. In 1919, he won the Prix Goncourt for the sequel, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flowers. The book represented on the stamp, Letters to the Duke of Valentinois, contains letters addressed by Proust to his friend Prince Pierre of Monaco. This correspondence had been kept secret until 2016, when they appeared in the Annales monégasques, a historical review published by the Archives of the Palace of Monaco.

• Design: Cyril DE LA PATELLIERE
• Line-engraving: Pierre ALBUISSON
• Printing process: Steel-engraving and offset
• Size of the stamp: 40,85 x 30 mm horizontal
• Quantity of issue: 40 000 stamps
• Sheet of 10 stamps with illuminations