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Our new translation of Gérard de Nerval's last novella, ‘Aurélia, ou la Reve et La Vie’ (‘Aurelia, or Life and the Dream’), is now available for browsing and download here.

Modelled stylistically, to a degree, on Dante’s semi-autobiographical ‘La Vita Nuova’, and sharing the latter’s theme of self-reassessment and renewal through the fact of the beloved’s death, the work draws on Gérard’s unrequited love, and memories of his own troubled mental states, particularly in the period prior to his suicide. Believing that the artist, especially the writer, should bear witness to every facet of human experience, and as a warning to others, he created in this text a psychological profile of his inner disturbances, and the power of dreams, as well as producing an accomplished literary work, one which strongly influenced André Breton and the Surrealist movement.