The Illuminated; or The Precursors of Socialism: Tales and Portraits

Poetical biographies of six radical thinkers from Cagliostro to Restif de la Bretonne, by the leading figure of French Romanticism

First published in French in 1852, The Illuminated was the first of a string of Gérard de Nerval's late works that would culminate in his posthumous fantastical autobiography Aurélia in 1855. The Illuminated collects six portraits of men whom Nerval mysteriously dubbed "precursors of socialism"--visionaries who together formed an alternative history of France and...