The Illuminated; or The Precursors of Socialism av Gerard de Nerval

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<p><strong>Poetical biographies of six radical thinkers from Cagliostro to Restif de la Bretonne, by the leading figure of French Romanticism</strong></p><p>First published in French in 1852, <I>The Illuminated</I> was the first of a string of G¿rd de Nerval¿s late works that would culminate in his posthumous fantastical autobiography <I>Aur¿a</I> in 1855. <I>The Illuminated</I> collects six portraits of men whom Nerval mysteriously dubbed ¿precursors of socialism¿¿visionaries who together formed an alternative history of France and a backdrop to a mystical form of madness that Nerval ultimately claimed for himself.<br>Nerval here presents the reader with Raoul Spifame, a mad lawyer who imagined himself to be Henry II; the Abb¿e Bucquoy, a man who opposed the monarchy and whose amazing escapes suggested the possession of magical powers; Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne, the 18th-century theosophist who defined God in human terms rather than spiritual; the Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, t