The Prisoner

Marcel Proust · 1871–1922 · France

Originally La Prisonnière (French)

Why it matters

The narrator keeps Albertine as a virtual captive in his Paris apartment, and jealousy curdles into the novel's most claustrophobic study of how possessing someone guarantees you'll never truly know them. Published posthumously, unrevised.

At a glance

Airless, obsessive interiority with almost no external event to anchor it.