Lorelei, Galantní bohéma, Říjnové noci, Malé zámky bohémy, Procházky a vzpomínky – de Nerval Gérard (2026)

This Czech-language volume brings together five prose works by Gérard de Nerval, published in 1852: Lorelei, The Gallant Bohemian, October Nights, The Little Bohemian Castles and Walks and Memories. In these collections, Nerval assembles texts written at different times, which are varied yet remarkably unified by their underlying themes. Lorelei originated in 1838, after Nerval’s first journey to Germany with Alexandre Dumas, undertaken to gather material for Leão Burckart, a drama intended to portray the moral state of German society after the Napoleonic Wars. His travel writing is less a history of cities and landmarks than an expression of the narrator’s inner universe. The Gallant Bohemian and its revised version, The Little Bohemian Castles, nostalgically recall happy bohemian years in a small romantic circle on Paris’s rue du Doyenné, while reflecting on prose and verse, contemporary poetry, folk songs, and the relationship between words and music. October Nights records nocturnal wanderings through Paris’s dubious districts and strange encounters. Walks and Memories turns, one last time, to a journey through Nerval’s own memory, reaching back to his earliest recollections and the darkness beyond them.