France's National Library launched a public appeal for donations on Wednesday to acquire hundreds of unpublished documents belonging to Marcel Proust, including some showing how the famed writer settled on one of his most famous lines.

Some of the roughly 900 documents were put up for show by the auction house Sotheby's on Wednesday morning and are set to be sold by his descendants.

They include manuscripts revealing how Proust developed the line in his seven-volume epic "In Search of Lost Time" about how the taste of an almond-flavoured madeleine cake triggered a flood of childhood memories.

The manuscripts from 1907 to 1909 show how he cycled through several different foodstuffs from "a piece of stale bread, then toasted bread, a biscotte (hard biscuit), and finally a madeleine", the

See Full Page