Nerval (1808-1855) is one of the most important writers of nineteenth-century France, both in prose and in verse. A precursor of the symbolists and the surrealists, Nerval has fascinated many major literary figures, including Proust and Breton, Eliot and Apollinaire, Michaux and Leiris. The great sonnet cycle, Les Chimères, in its marvellous combination of spell, quest and dream, continues to fascinate writers, readers, and that special category of writerly readers, translators. The translator of this volume is the gifted poet Will Stone, who explains his work in a strongly-worded essay: "like a partly submerged crocodile, with one amber eye half open the foreign line sits, waiting for the anxious translator to make a move." The book contains three other texts: a foreword by the poet, Anne Beresford, a general introduction to Nerval by Michael Ham-burger (published for the first time in the previous edition of this book, some fifty years after it was written), and an afterword and notes on Les Chimères by Professor Norma Rinsler, the doyenne of English Nervaliens.

Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855) was the nom-de-plume of the French writer, poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie. A major figure of French romanticism, he is best known for his poems and novellas, especially the collection Les Filles du feu (The Daughters of Fire), which includes the novella Sylvie and the poem "El Desdichado", also included in Les Chimères. He played a major role in introducing French readers to the works of German Romantic authors, including Schiller and Goethe. His later work investigated the relationship between poetry and madness, reality and fiction, and dreams and life. He was a major influence on Marcel Proust, André Breton and Surrealism.