Editing Gérard de Nerval (section)

===Travels===

On 22 December 1842, Nerval set off for the Near East, travelling to [[Alexandria]], [[Cairo]], [[Beirut]], [[Constantinople]], [[Malta]] and [[Naples]]. Back in Paris in 1843, he began to publish articles about his trip in 1844. His ''[[Voyage en Orient]]'' appeared in 1851.

Between 1844 and 1847, Nerval travelled to Belgium, the Netherlands, and London, producing [[travel writing]]. At the same time, he wrote novellas and opera librettos and translated poems by his friend [[Heinrich Heine]], publishing a selection of translations in 1848. His last years were spent in dire financial and emotional straits. Following his doctor Emile Blanche's advice, he tried to purge himself of his intense emotions in his writing. This is when he composed some of his best works.

[[File:Gustave Doré, La Rue de la Vieille Lanterne The Suicide of Gérard de Nerval, 1855.jpg|thumb|''La rue de la vieille lanterne: The Suicide of Gérard de Nerval'', by [[Gustave Doré]], 1855]]
Nerval had a pet [[lobster]] named Thibault, which he walked at the end of a blue silk ribbon in the [[Palais-Royal]] in Paris.<ref name="Horton">{{cite magazine|url= https://harpers.org/2008/10/nerval-a-man-and-his-lobster/| title= Nerval: A Man and His Lobster| first = Scott| last = Horton| author-link = Scott Horton (lawyer)| date= 12 October 2008| magazine= Harper's Magazine| access-date = 22 January 2010}}</ref> According to [[Théophile Gautier]], Nerval said:<ref>{{cite book|last=Gautier |first= Théophile |title=Portraits et Souvenirs Littéraires |location= Paris |publisher=Charpentier |year= 1875 }}</ref>
{{quote|Why should a lobster be any more ridiculous than a dog? ...or a cat, or a gazelle, or a lion, or any other animal that one chooses to take for a walk? I have a liking for lobsters. They are peaceful, serious creatures. They know the secrets of the sea, they don't bark, and they don't gnaw upon one's ''monadic'' privacy like dogs do. And Goethe had an aversion to dogs, and he wasn't mad.}}

In his later years, Nerval also took an interest in socialism, tracing its origins to the eighteenth-century [[Les Illuminés|Illuminists]] and esoteric authors such as [[Nicolas-Edme Rétif]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wyngaard |first1=Amy S. |title=Bad Books: Rétif de la Bretonne, Sexuality, and Pornography |date=2013 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |page=3}}</ref>