Late December: sets off for the ‘Orient’.

1843

February–April: Cairo. May—June: Lebanon. July–October: Constantinople. November: Naples.

1844

Returns to Paris. Publishes the poem ‘Le Christ aux Oliviers’ (‘Christ on the Mount of Olives’). Travels to Belgium and Holland. Patents a ‘stereograph’.

1846

Publishes ‘Femmes du Caire’ (‘Women of Cairo’), later incorporated into his Voyage en Orient (Journey to the Orient).

1848

Translations of Heine in the Revue des deux mondes.

1849

Co-authors the play Les Monténégrins (The Montenegrians), a modest success. Briefly visits London with Gautier.

1850

Co-authors a Hindu drama, Le Chariot d’enfant (The Child’s Chariot), a box-office failure. Travels through Germany. Publication of the experimental serial novel, Les Faux-Saulniers (The Salt-Smugglers).

1851

Publishes Voyage en Orient (Journey to the Orient). Late December: co-authors an unsuccessful play on the invention of printing, L’Imagier de Harlem (The Image-maker of Haarlem).

1852

January–February: depression and disarray; hospitalized for three weeks. Travels through Belgium and Holland. Visits the Valois. Publishes Les Illuminés (The Illuminati), Lorely, ‘Les Nuits d’Octobre’ (‘October Nights’) and Contes et facéties (Fibs and Squibs).

1853

January: publishes Petits Châteaux de Bohème (Castles in Bohemia). Early February—late March: hospitalized in a municipal clinic in Paris. August: publication of ‘Sylvie’ followed by nervous breakdown; confined to the clinic of Dr Emile Blanche in Passy for the next nine months. November: writes ‘Pandora’ and the sonnets ‘El Desdichado’ and ‘Artémis’. Begins ‘Aurélia’.

1854

January: publishes Les Filles du feu ( The Daughters of Fire) which includes the sonnets of ‘The Chimeras’. Late May: released by Dr Blanche. June–July: travels through Germany. Early August: readmitted to Dr Blanche’s clinic. Late October: after a campaign mounted by the Société des Gens de Lettres, obtains an official discharge from his doctor. Partial publication of ‘Promenades et souvenirs’ (‘Rambles and Recollections’).

1855

1 January: First part of ‘Aurélia’ published in the Revue de Paris. Homeless. 26 January: Found hanged in the rue de la Vieille-Lanterne at dawn. 15 February: Second part of ‘Aurélia’ appears.

FURTHER READING

Blaser, Robin, trans., Les Chimères, Open Space, 1965.

Chambers, Ross, Room for Maneuver. Reading (the) Oppositional (in) Narrative, University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Chambers, Ross, Story and Situation. Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction, University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Chambers, Ross, The Writing of Melancholy. Modes of Opposition in Early French Modernism, University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Dubruck, Alfred, Gérard de Nerval and the German Heritage, Mouton, 1965.

Duncan, Robert, Bending the Bow, New Directions, 1968.

Eco, Umberto, Six Walks in Fictional Woods, Harvard University Press, 1994.

Elphinstone, Conrad, Introduction, The Women of Cairo. Scenes in the Life of the Orient, Routledge and Sons, 1929.

Felman, Shoshana, Writing and Madness, Cornell University Press, 1985.

Foucault, Michel, Madness and Civilization, Pantheon Books, 1965; Routledge, 1990.

Gilbert, Clare, Nerval’s Double.