The Daughters of Fire

By Gérard de Nerval

The Daughters of Fire is a collection of stories by the French Romantic poet G rard 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 Ang lique, 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, milie, 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 Desdichado

Dark am I, the widowed, the disconsolate
Prince of Aquitaine in this crumbling keep
Dead my only star, and my lute inconstellate
Bears the black Sun of mournful Grief.

You who have consoled me, in this graven night
O bring back Posillipo and the shores of Italy
The flower which showed my shadowed heart such light
And 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 queen
In the siren's cave, I dreamed a dream...

And twice victorious have I crossed the Acheron
Sounding forth on my Orphean lyre
First the holy sighs and then the fairy choir.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0BZFP2SR2
• ISBN13: 9798388787071
• Release Date: March 2023
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 362 Pages
• Weight: 1.17 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"