Les Illuminés

Les Illuminés, ou Les Précurseurs du Socialisme (also sometimes subtitled as Récits et Portraits) is a collection of narratives or essays by the French poet and author Gérard de Nerval published in 1852. In 2022, a complete translation by Peter Valente was published by Wakefield Press under the title The Illuminated, or The Precursors of Socialism: Tales and Portraits.^[1]

The book consists of six narratives relating the adventures and mishaps of historical figures whose lives reflected different aspects of Nerval’s own experiences. It is a male counterpart to his Les Filles du feu. The concerns of socialism in the eighteenth century and the French Revolution underline most of the narratives.

Contents[edit]

• La Bibliothèque de Mon Oncle, a short introduction
• Le Roi de Bicêtre
• Histoire de l’Abbé de Bucquoy
• Les Confidences de Nicolas
• Jacques Cazotte, a French writer, author of The Devil in Love, unjustly guillotined during the French revolution at the age of 72. He inspired E. T. A. Hoffmann and Charles Nodier.
• Cagliostro
• Quintus Aucler

References[edit]