De Nerval: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Gerard de Nerval (Author), Richard Sieburth (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1999

Poet, visionary, short-story writer and autobiographer, Gerard de Nerval (1808-1855) explored the uncertain borderlines between dream and reality, irony and madness, autobiography and fiction with his groundbreaking writings. This comprehensive selection of his works includes "Aurelia", the memoir of his madness; the haunting novella of love and memory "Sylvie" (considered to be a masterpiece by Proust); the hermetic sonnets of "The Chimeras"; as well as Nerval's experimental fictions and selections from his correspondence, which demonstrate his lucid awareness of how nineteenth-century psychiatry consigned his fertile imagination to the status of mental illness. Together these pieces confirm Nerval's place as a pioneering modernist, a precursor of the French Symbolists and a vital model for such writers as Marcel Proust, Andre Breton, Antonin Artaud and Michel Leiris.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)
Original Language: French

About the Author

Gerard de Nerval (1805-55) was an inveterate traveller, and made many contributions of travel literature to various periodicals. He was also a prolific poet and wrote many tales including 'Sylvie' (1853), his most read work. Richard Sieburth is Professor of French at New York University. He has translated Walter Benjamin's 'Moscow Diary' and Michel Leiris' 'Nights as Day/Days as Night'.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014044601X
• ISBN-13: 978-0140446012
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #82,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > European
  • #60 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > French

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ruined Tower, March 21, 2003

By 

Arch Llewellyn "arch-l" - See all my reviews

This review is from: De Nerval: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Nerval was the Mother of All Bohemians, a romantic eccentric who set the stage for latter-day zanies from Arthur Rimbaud to John Wieners. His most famous stunt was parading through Paris with a lobster, explaining to his friends: "He does not bark, and he knows the secrets of the deep." With the beautiful, dense, enigmatic poems in 'The Chimeras' he virtually invented literary Modernism, while 'Aurelia' is one of the most touching accounts of schizophrenia ever written (the book is worth it for these two pieces alone, along with the proto-Proustian 'Sylvie'). Nerval's tragic disintegration, ending in suicide in 1855, seems to mark the point where Romanticism turned from fantasy and Nature to madness and derangement, a pattern that still plays out in our culture in a hundred different ways. Sieburth's a little intrusive with the prefaces and footnotes--he seems anxious you might not 'get' Nerval without his help. The sections are also arranged thematically instead of chronologically, which makes it hard to trace his development as a writer. But the notes include plenty of useful biographical information, and for the money it's easily the best selection of Nerval's writings in English. A great intro to a fascinating writer.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent phantasmagoric collection!, June 28, 2000

By 

goblinmarket (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: De Nerval: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

I came upon this volume by chance, after it won a translation prize from PEN, but was glad I did. Nerval seems to take up a curious position in literary history, and though is something of an eccentric, he was loved by later writers (Proust) and by artists (Joseph Cornell). The stories are strange and fantastic, travel narratives which are more journeys of the mind than actual travels. Anyone with an interest in the surreal, or in the fabular fictions of Calvino or Borges, will find these stories a delight. The stories raise questions about identity, sanity and madness, and linguisticly are truly alluring.

Also included are a number of poems and letters, which combined with the prose pieces present a great picture of the author's whole work. It seems like the best place to start for anyone who has not read Nerval before, but I'm sure that dedicated enthusiasts will find new pleasure in the excellent translation and the lucid editorial expositions that Richard Sieburth provides throughout the text.

6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nerval's eccentricities and mental illness, June 23, 2007

By 

Brion Gerken "Brion Gerken" (Omaha, NE usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: De Nerval: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

I'm in a constant search for writers with mental illness.
Gerard de Nerval fits the bill and as a 19th Century
French writer bent on eccentricities and called bousingos or
'rowdies' known for their orgies, eating ice cream out of skulls,
nudity at seminars. Nerval went insane and spent the rest of
his life in and out of an asylum and eventually killed himself......the end
of his considered greatest work Aurelia was in his pocket was found
in his pocket when he hung himself. Aurelia is his account of his
fall into madness. I'm going to read it again. I read everything only
once, i'll start re-reading with this book.