Admired by both Proust and Breton, this nineteenth century book was also the favourite of artist Joseph Cornell. An account of the author's passion for an actress and subsequent descent into madness, AURELIA is a document of dreams, obsessions, and insanity. One of the original bohemians, Nerval was well known in his day for parading a lobster on a blue ribbon through the gardens of the Palais-Royal, and for his suicide (1855), hanging from an apron string he called the garter of the Queen of Sheba.