Nerval, GÉRARD DE, the adopted name of Gérard Labrunie, one of the most attractive but ill-starred figures among the French Romanticists, was born at Paris, May 21, 1808, son of an officer in the Grand Army. He was educated along with Gautier at the Lycée Charlemagne, and early took to letters, publishing at twenty a translation of Faust which pleased Goethe, and gave his choruses to Berlioz. Desultory work, a love-affair cut short by death, fits of restless travel, of dissipation, and of gloom that at times deepened into mental darkness, and at last death, almost certainly by his own hand, 25th January 1855, sum up the wretched story of his life. He moved in a romantic dream-world all his days, squandered money when he had it prodigally upon bric-à-brac, read deeply in Greek, Italian, German, English, and Arabic, and wandered carelessly over Italy, Germany, Greece, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Gérard de Nerval wrote admirably alike in prose and verse, his style ever delicate, natural, and original, informed with a subtle personal charm of a quite remarkable character. But his travels, criticism, plays, and poems, good literature as they are, are far less interesting than his Aurélie, ou le Rêve et la Vie (1855), an experience of his own madness. 'This strange work,' says Andrew Lang, 'does for insanity what the Dream of Gerontius has done for death.' In Les Illuminés, ou les Précurseurs du Socialisme (1852), he discusses the mysticism of certain highly endowed men in its relation to mental alienation. But his most delightful work will be found in his fantastic short tales, which have an exquisiteness of their own that approaches near perfection. These are the Contes et Facéties (1852), and the semi-autobiographic series of Filles de Feu, containing Sylvie, Angélique, Jenny,
Octavie, Isis, Emilie, Corilla (1856). Another book of singular interest is the mélange entitled La Bohème Galante. Some of his most charming poems are graceful adaptations of French peasants' folk-songs, the beauty of which he had ears to hear.
His Œuvres complètes were collected in 5 vols. in 1868. See Andrew Lang in Fraser's Magazine, May 1873.