Rare signed copy of Proust's 'Swann's Way' to go up for auction An extremely rare copy of Marcel Proust's "Swann's Way" is expected to sell for around half a million euros ($580,000) when it goes under the hammer at Sotheby's in Paris next month. The discovery of the rare book coincides with that of letters which show the French writer paid for glowing reviews of the first volume of his "Remembrance of Things Past" to be put into newspapers.