Daumal's symbolic mountain represents a way to truth that "cannot not exist," and his classic allegory of man's search for himself embraces the certainty that one can know and conquer one's own reality.

    482 pages, 4 plates, boards, very good. From the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition: George Sand, pseud. of Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, Baronne Dudevant 1804-76, French novelist. Other variant forms of her maiden name include Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin. Born of an aristocratic father and a lower-class mother, she was reared by her austere paternal grandmother on a country estate in Berry. After entering a convent in Paris, she returned to the countryside and led an unconventional life, donning the male clothes that became a mark of her rebellion. In 1831, after eight years of a marriage of convenience with Baron Dudevant, a country squire, she went with her two children to Paris, obtaining a divorce in 1836. She wrote some 80 novels, which were widely popular in their day, supporting herself and her children chiefly by her writing. Her earlier novels were romantic; later ones often expressed her serious concern with social reform. Her liaisons-with Jules Sandeau, Musset, Chopin, and others-were open and notorious, but were only part of her life. She demanded for women the freedom in living that was a matter of course to the men of her day.

    Drawing on the intense emotional experiences of his youth, Proust tells the story of boyhood summers of strawberries and cream cheese, of garlands of pink blossom under branches of white may, of love and its lies, of political scandal and of his deep feeling for his parents.