Memoir. Translated by Monique DiDonna. Gerard de Nerval's greatest subject was himself. He journeyed to distant parts of the globe in order to comprehend and articulate the demons that assailed his innermost being. The partly autobiographical AURELIA, with Nerval as both narrator and protagonist, is a mind rending odyssey of cultural and spiritual exploration, shared by its tormented author and his spellbound readers. Nerval's search for the ideal woman, his fountainhead of grace and salvation, is personified in the distant Aurelia, based on his real-life obsession with the performer Jenny Colon.