I liked this collection of three tales: they were quite varied, three different nineteenth-century genre in a short, easily-digestible format.

The first tale is the Romantic Love story, featuring a nearly-bankrupt artist pining for the woman who, of course, merely toys with him. The second, and longest, story I’d class as Weird Fiction: a Parisian everyman (well, every-bourgeois) tempted by gypsy magic -- except the magic comes in the form of something straight out of a late-medieval courtly romance, and gets taken to even more outlandish uses. The final story is the Ghost Story, told almost as a fairytale parody.

What I liked best about these stories is their quiet meta-awareness: de Nerval winkingly employs the tropes of the trade of a Serious Romantic Artist, and wants his readers to know that he, too, knows that his tales are slightly ridiculous. (Has it taken me this long to realize what “Romantic Irony” really means?) ( )