October 1839, a publisher had agreed to publish “Gaspard de la Nuit” and even printed flyers announcing its upcoming publication but the project never came to end while Bertrand was alive. In 1840, he believed he was cured of the disease and started to write verse again. He tried at last to contact the publisher in hopes of finally publishing his manuscript on 5 October, but the publisher had stopped his activity. Sickness forced him to go back to the hospital on 11 March 1841. He died there in the morning on 29 April 1841. His close family, mother and sister, did not come to the hospital, nor did they attend his funeral. His mother died in 1854. Posterity “Gaspard de la Nuit” was finally published in November 1842. It sold 20 copies. However, this edition was full of mistakes due to an inaccurate copy of the manuscript. In 1925, Bertrand Guégan published a new edition from an original manuscript that corrected most of the mistakes. It is only in 1992, when an original calligraphed manuscript was acquired by the Bibliothèque nationale, that the book could be published accordingly to the will of its author, with accurate display of the text and illustrations. In 1862, Charles Baudelaire admitted in a letter he was deeply influenced by Bertrand's work when writing “Spleen de Paris. Théodore de Banville, an admirer and later rival of Baudelaire, also quoted Bertrand as a main inspiration in the opening of his book “La Lanterne Magique” in 1883. He became a cult author for the Symbolists, especially for Stéphane Mallarmé who discovered him at the age of twenty and referenced his work throughout his entire life. However, it is only in the 20th century that his work was really recognized. Max Jacob brought attention to Bertrand by making him the inventor of prose poetry. Afterwards, the Surrealists contributed to his fame, especially André Breton who referenced him in his 1924 “Surrealist Manifesto”. René Magritte named one of his paintings “Gaspard de la nuit”, as it was inspired by the poem “Le Maçon”. Maurice Ravel wrote three piano solos on themes from “Gaspard de la nuit”, which is considered one of the most difficult pieces of the entire piano repertoire. Since 1922, there is an Aloysius Bertrand street in Dijon. References , 2 volumes. External links Valentina Gosetti, Aloysius Bertrand's Gaspard de la Nuit: Beyond the Prose Poem