The Daughters of Fire is a collection of stories by the French Romantic poet Gérard de Nerval, published in 1854, a year before his tragic death. The centerpiece of the collection is Sylvie, a lyrical novella which Andrew Lang described as one o... Read more

The Daughters of Fire is a collection of stories by the French Romantic poet Gérard de Nerval, published in 1854, a year before his tragic death. The centerpiece of the collection is Sylvie, a lyrical novella which Andrew Lang described as one of the little masterpieces of the world. It is the prototype for Proust's Remembrance of Things Past: it is a nostalgic view of the narrator's childhood viewed through the lens of memory and impression. The Daughters of Fire also includes Angélique, the charming story of the writer's search for an elusive book and the elopement of a 17th century lady and The Chimeras, a collection of sonnets which was influential for the French symbolists, T.S. Eliot, and W.B. Yeats. Other stories in the collection are Jemmy, Octavie, Isis, Émilie, Corilla, and the essay Songs and Legends of Valois. This is the only complete English translation of this collection; it conveys the charm and spirit of Nerval's writings to an Anglophone audience.El DesdichadoDark am I, the widowed, the disconsolatePrince of Aquitaine in this crumbling keepDead my only star, and my lute inconstellateBears the black Sun of mournful Grief.You who have consoled me, in this graven nightO bring back Posillipo and the shores of ItalyThe flower which showed my shadowed heart such lightAnd the arbor where the rose twined round the ivy.Am I Love or Phoebus? Lusignan or Biron?My forehead still red from the kiss of the queenIn the siren's cave, I dreamed a dream...And twice victorious have I crossed the AcheronSounding forth on my Orphean lyreFirst the holy sighs and then the fairy choir. Less