Most Popular Books by Victor Hugo

Set in medieval Paris, Victor Hugo’s powerful historical romance The Hunchback of Notre-Dame has resonated with succeeding generations ever since its publication in 1837. It tells the story of the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda, condemned as a witch by the tormented archdeacon Claude Frollo, who lusts after her. Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer of Notre-Dame Cathedral, having fallen in love with the kindhearted Esmeralda, tries to save her by hiding her in the cathedral’s tower. When a crowd of Parisian peasants, misunderstanding Quasimodo’s motives, attacks the church in an attempt to liberate her, the story ends in tragedy.

Encompassing a multitude of plots, the narrative is bounded by the character of the protagonist, Jean Valjean. Expressing the author''s ideas about society, religion and politics, it is in the backdrop of Napoleonic Wars and ensuing years that the story unravels. Grace, moral philosophy, law and history of France are discussed.

The French title of the novel emphasizes Notre Dame''s (A French memorial) role as a symbol of Paris. Primarily novel is concerned with the theme of revolution and social strife. Hugo was profoundly concerned by the class differences that set the 1789 French Revolution in motion. Hugo acknowledges that fate plays a powerful role, but implies that free will is also possible.

After Fantine’s death, her daughter Cosette remains at the inn where she endures frequent abuse from the owners before the unexpected arrival of Jean Valjean. The duo unites and work to create a better life for themselves away from the city. Following the events of Les Misérables Volume One: Fantine, Jean Valjean is once again on the wrong side of the law. After being sentenced to hard labor and eventually the death penalty, he barely escapes with his life. He travels to an inn where he encounters Cosette, the orphaned daughter of Fantine. He notices her abusive living conditions and attempts to remove her from the innkeepers care. Together, Jean and Cosette break away from the clutches of the owners as well as the cruel Inspector Javert. Les Misérables Volume Two: Cosette is the continuation of the tumultuous story of Jean Valjean. This is one part of a captivating tale that’s been adapted multiple times for stage, television and film. The most notable being the 2012 Oscar-winning production from director, Tom Hooper. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Les Misérables Volume Two: Cosette is both modern and readable.

William Shakespeare (1864) is an experimental biography by Victor Hugo. Written while the poet was living in exile on the island of Guernsey, William Shakespeare was doomed to fail at its conception. Condemned by critics who expected Hugo to focus on the works of the Elizabethan playwright, William Shakespeare is in reality a sweeping biography of literature itself, a touching tribute to the spirit of creativity which defines humanity’s life on earth and beyond. “There are men, oceans in reality. These waves; this ebb and flow; this terrible go-and-come; this noise of every gust; these lights and shadows; these vegetations belonging to the gulf [...] –all this can exist in one spirit; and then this spirit is called genius, and you have Aeschylus, you have Isaiah, you have Juvenal, you have Dante, you have Michael Angelo, you have Shakespeare; and looking at these minds is the same thing as to look at the ocean.” For a writer of Hugo’s stature, whose poems, plays, novels, and essays earned him a reputation on an international scale as one of the nineteenth century’s premier artists, there is always the chance that the myth will outlast the man, and that the work will fall victim to idolization. In William Shakespeare, he leans into this tendency to immortalize the artist while forgetting the art. Begun as a simple introduction to his son’s translation of Shakespeare’s works into French, the project ballooned into something much greater, allowing Hugo to meditate on the nature of creativity and to situate the contribution of one writer within the history of humanity itself. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Victor Hugo’s William Shakespeare is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

Victor Hugo’s Bug-Jargal (1826) is one of the most important works of nineteenth-century colonial fiction, and quite possibly the most sustained novelistic treatment of the Haitian Revolution by a major European author. This Broadview edition makes Hugo’s novel available in a completely new English translation, the first in over one hundred years. Set in 1791, during the first months of a slave revolt that would eventually lead to the creation of the black republic of Haiti in 1804, Bug-Jargal is a stirring tale of interracial friendship and rivalry, a provocative account of the ties that bind a young Frenchman to one of the rebel leaders and the tragic misunderstandings that threaten to sever those ties completely. This Broadview edition contains a critical introduction and a broad selection of appendices, including Hugo’s never-before-translated 1820 short story “Bug-Jargal,” contemporary reviews of the novel, documents pertaining to the young Hugo’s poetics and politics, and selections from his source materials about the Haitian Revolution.

In this profoundly moving classic by the author of Les Misérables, a condemned man facing the guillotine looks back on his life and writes of his anguish inside prison walls.

Les misérables is a novel by French politician, poet and writer Victor Hugo published in 1862, considered one of the best known works of the nineteenth century. The novel, of romantic style, raises through its argument a reasoning about the good and the evil, on the law, the politics, the ethics, the justice and the religion.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame By Victor Hugo The Hunchback of Notre Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris) is an 1831 French novel written by Victor Hugo. It is set in 1482 in Paris, in and around the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. The book tells the story of a poor barefoot Gypsy girl (La Esmeralda) and a misshapen bell-ringer (Quasimodo) who was raised by the Archdeacon (Claude Frollo). The book was written as a statement to preserve the Notre Dame cathedral and not to ''modernize'' it, as Hugo was thoroughly against this. The story begins during the Renaissance in 1482, the day of the Festival of Fools in Paris. Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer, is introduced by his crowning as Pope of Fools. Esméralda, a beautiful 16-year-old gypsy with a kind and generous heart, captures the hearts of many men but especially Quasimodo''s adopted father, Claude Frollo. Frollo is torn between his lust and the rules of the church. He orders Quasimodo to get her. Quasimodo is caught and whipped and ordered to be tied down in the heat. Esméralda seeing his thirst, offers him water. It saves her, for she captures the heart of the hunchback. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

In the third and fourth part, tells the story of Fantine, a girl who falls in love but is suddenly left by her lover while she is pregnant. Disconsolate, she decides to give a decent education to her daughter whom Cossette calls. But the single mother''s life is harder than she expected and the finances are not enough. He then asks his family to take care of the child. This new situation transforms the life of both, the family demands a lot of money to Fantine for the care of its daughter, at the same time that they mistreat and they overwhelm to Cossette.

Moving away from the explicitly political content of his previous novels, Victor Hugo turns to social commentary in The Man Who Laughs, an 1869 work that was made into a popular film in the 1920s. The plot deals with a band of miscreants who deliberately deform children to make them more effective beggars, as well as the long-lasting emotional and social damage that this abhorrent practice inflicts upon its victims.

Gwynplaine is a young homeless boy with a facial disfigurement who comes to the rescue of an infant girl orphaned as the result of a snowstorm. After the two are adopted by an itinerant carnival vendor called Ursus, they embark on a life on the road, for fifteen years performing to audiences in southern England. However, when Duchess Josiana, the illegitimate daughter of King James I, discovers their act, their lives are changed forever. "The Man Who Laughs" was written by Victor Hugo over a period of fifteen months while he was living in the Channel Islands, having been exiled from his native France. Contents include: "Book the First. Night not so Black as Man," "Portland Bill," "Left Alone," "Questions," "The Tree of Human Invention," "Struggle Between Death and Life," "The North Point of Portland," "Book The Second. The Hooker at Sea," "Superhuman Laws," "Our First Rough Sketches Filled In," "Troubles men on the Troubled Sea," et cetera. Victor Marie Hugo (1802 - 1885) was a French novelist, dramatist, and poet belonging to the Romantic movement. He is widely hailed as one of the most accomplished and well-known French writers, originally achieving renown for his poetical endeavours-the most notable of which are the volumes "Les Contemplations" and "La Legende des siecles." Outside of his native country, Hugo''s best-known works are his novels: "Les Miserables" (1862) and "Notre-Dame de Paris" (1831), commonly known as "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame." Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author."

A new translation by Scot James Hogarth for the first unabridged English edition of the novel, which tells the story of an illiterate fisherman from the Channel Islands who must free a ship that has run aground in order to win the hand of the woman he loves, a shipowner''s daughter.

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