![Sam Leith](https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Sam_L.png?w=176)
Soldier, poet, lover, spy: just the man to translate Proust
Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff’s Englishing of Proust — widely and immediately agreed to be one of the greatest literary translations of all time — very nearly didn’t happen. Scott Moncrieff only suggested the project to his publisher after they rejected a collection of satirical squibs in verse (sample: ‘Sir Philip Sassoon is the Member for
![](https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Charles-Scott-Moncrieff.jpg?w=440)