Victor Hugo Books In Order

Novels

  1. The Last Day of a Condemned Man (1829)
  2. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831)
  3. Les Miserables (1862)
  4. The Toilers of the Sea (1866)
  5. The Man Who Laughs (1869)
  6. Ninety-Three (1874)
  7. History of a Crime (1877)
  8. Cast Up By the Sea (1879)

Collections

Plays

  1. Amy Robsart (1821)
  2. Cromwell (1827)
  3. Hernani (1830)
  4. Marion De Lorme (1831)
  5. Mary Tudor (1833)
  6. Ruy Blas (1838)

Non fiction

  1. Things Seen (1887)

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Victor Hugo Books Overview

The Last Day of a Condemned Man

Victor Hugo, the shining light of French Romanticism, was an indefatigable campaigner against the death penalty. This unique anthology of his controversial writings on crime and punishment reveals the author’s generosity of spirit and his pity for the condemned. However, as always in Hugo, a degree of endearing self glorification is never absent. The Last Day of a Condemned Man, while not seeking to minimalize its protagonist’s responsibility for the murder he has committed, reminds the reader of the mental anguish endured by a man condemned to a cell. Claude Gueux is a documentary account of the martyrdom of a prisoner driven to crime by poverty, and to murder by the casual brutality of a head warder. Also included are Hugo’s moving diary entries recording his visits to the prisons of La Roquette and the Conciergerie.

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

  • New introductions commissioned from today’s top writers and scholars
  • Biographies of the authors
  • Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
  • Footnotes and endnotes
  • Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
  • Comments by other famous authors
  • Study questions to challenge the reader’s viewpoints and expectations
  • Bibliographies for further reading
  • Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences biographical, historical, and literary to enrich each reader’s understanding of these enduring works.

One of the first great novels of the Romantic era, Victor Hugo‘s The Hunchback of Notre Dame has thrilled generations of readers with its powerfully melodramatic story of Quasimodo, the deformed hunchback who lives in the bell tower of medieval Paris s most famous cathedral.

Feared and hated by all, Quasimodo is looked after by Dom Claude Frollo, a stern, cold priest who ignores the poor hunchback in the face of his frequent public torture. But someone steps forward to help the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda, whose single act of kindness fills Quasimodo with love. Can the hunchback save the lovely gypsy from Frollo s evil plan, or will they all perish in the shadows of Notre Dame?

An epic tale of beauty and sadness, The Hunchback of Notre Dame portrays the sufferings of humanity with compassion and power.

Isabel Roche teaches French language and literature at Bennington College. She specializes in the nineteenth century French novel.

Les Miserables

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences biographical, historical, and literary to enrich each reader’s understanding of these enduring works. One of the most widely read novels of all time, Les Mis rables was the crowning literary achievement of Victor Hugo’s stunning career. Though he was considered the greatest French writer of his day, Hugo was forced to flee the country because of his opposition to Napoleon III. While in exile he completed Les Mis rables, an enormous melodrama set against the background of political upheaval in France following the rule of Napoleon I. This newly abridged edition of Les Mis rables tells the story of the peasant Jean Valjean unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny, and hounded by his nemesis, the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolent police detective Javert. As Valjean struggles to redeem his past, we are thrust into the teeming underworld of Paris with all its poverty, ignorance, and suffering. Just as cruel tyranny threatens to extinguish the last vestiges of hope, rebellion sweeps over the land like wildfire, igniting a vast struggle for the democratic ideal in France. A monumental classic dedicated to the oppressed, the underdog, the laborer, the rebel, the orphan, and the misunderstood, Les Mis rables is a rich, emotional novel that captures nothing less than the entirety of life in nineteenth century France. Laurence M. Porter has published twelve books, including Victor Hugo 1999, and a hundred articles and chapters. He was a National Endowment for the Humanties Senior Fellow in 1998. He teaches French at Michigan State University, where he won the Distinguished Faculty Award in 1995.

The Toilers of the Sea

First published in 1866, Hugo’s story unfolds the life of a reclusive fisherman, Gilliat, who lives on the Isle of Guernsey, where Hugo himself was exiled for a large portion of his life. When Gilliat becomes a young man, he falls in love with D ruchette, the beautiful niece of wealthy ship owner Lethierry. When Lethierry’s steamship mysteriously runs aground, D ruchette, who is in love with the new rector of the island, offers to marry the man who can recover the ‘Durande’. Gilliat sets off at once to free the ship, and his feats of ingenuity and strength create some of the most memorable descriptions to be found in a romantic novel. Although the least known of Hugo’s masterpieces, this deliberately grandiose tale is by turns a sympathetic, richly detailed account of the hard work of seamanship and exhilarating action, as in the remarkable battle with the octopus. This irresistible novel, written with Hugo’s considerable narrative skill, is both captivating and haunting to its ironic conclusion.

The Man Who Laughs

VICTOR HUGO’S long and chequered life 1802 85 was filled with experiences of the most diverse character literature and politics, the court and the street, parliament and the theatre, labour, struggles, disappointments, exile and triumphs. In 1855 he began a 15 year long exile on the island of Guernsey, where he completed, among others, his longest and most famous work, Les Mis rables 1862, and also The Man Who Laughs L’Homme qui rit; 1869, also known as ‘By Order of the King’, a historic novel with fictional characters, set in England 1688 1705. . it will be seen that, here again, the story is admirably adapted to the moral. The constructive ingenuity exhibited throughout is almost morbid. Nothing could be more happily imagined. than the adventures of Gwynplaine, the itinerant mountebank, snatched suddenly out of his little way of life, and installed without preparation as one of the hereditary legislators of a great country. It is with a very bitter irony that the paper, on which all this depends, is left to float for years at the will of wind and tide. What, again, can be finer in conception than that voice from the people heard suddenly in the House of Lords, in solemn arraignment of the pleasures and privileges of its splendid occupants? The horrible laughter, stamped for ever ‘by order of the king’ upon the face of this strange spokesman of democracy, adds yet another feature of justice to the scene; in all time, travesty has been the argument of oppression; and, in all time, the oppressed might have made this answer: ‘If I am vile, is it not your system that has made me so?’ Robert Louis Stevenson

Ninety-Three

Ninety three, the last of Victor Hugo’s novels, is regarded by many including such diverse critics as Robert Louis Stevenson and Andr Maurois as his greatest work. 1793, Year Two of the Republic, saw the establishment of the National Convention, the execution of Louis XVI, the Terror, and the monarchist revolt in the Vend e, brutally suppressed by the Republic. Hugo s epic follows three protagonists through this tumultuous year: the noble royalist de Lantenac; Gauvain, who embodies a benevolent and romantic vision of the Republic; and Cimourdain, whose principles are altogether more robespierrean. The conflict of values culminates in a dramatic climax on the scaffold. Following a distinguished career as a civil servant, James Hogarth acquired a reputation as a versatile and punctilious translator. His translations span travel guides, archaeological texts, and novels. In 2002 he won the French American Foundation Translation Prize for his English translation of Victor Hugo s Travailleurs de la Mer. He died in 2006.

History of a Crime

By the age of twenty nine Victor Hugo was the established master of French poetry, drama and the novel; by virtue of Les Orientales, Hernani and Notre Dame de Paris respectively. He would write for nearly fifty four more years with no significant depreciation in his work. Hugo wrote, in Dieu God, that Satan had sent three evils into this world; war, capitol punishment and imprisonment. On April 13, 1845 Hugo was made a Peer de France and on June 4th he was elected to the National Assembly. The revolution of 1848 marked a watershed in the social and political opinions and ultimately in the course of the great writer’s literary career. However, for Victor Hugo the course that would lead him from the right to the left in the Chamber of Deputies, unfolded gradually over the first two years of the upheaval. Hugo’s reputation as a critic already insured that his preventative arrest along with other dissenting parliamentarians. Hugo also futilely attempted to form a resistance committee and tried to rally popular support in Paris for a new round of barricades. These moments are the subject of his novel History of a Crime. By the time the great romantic had begun his exile he had turned one hundred and eighty degrees, from an adherent of the restored monarchy to a champion of a democratic and social republic. When his political activities forced him to flee Paris, he started writing less than 24 hours after he arrived in Brussels. In less than five months, he completed History of a Crime, which contains vicious attacks on Napoleon III. Belgium asked Hugo to leave because they were forced to maintain friendly relations with France. Hugo then went to the small island of Jersey not far from the French coast, but he would never make a real home for himself there. There he published Les Ch tements a book of poems further defaming Napoleon III. When England allied itself with Napoleon III 1855 Hugo attacked the Queen as well, with this he overstepped his welcome in Jersey and was told to leave the island Jersey was a British holding.

Cast Up By the Sea

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1879 edition by Macmillan & Co., London.

Cromwell

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Hernani

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR’d book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Ruy Blas

Victor Hugo’s romantic melodrama Ruy Blas was first performed in 1838 for the opening of the Theatre de la Renaissance. There was a revival at the Odeon with Sarah Bernhardt in 1872, and at the Theatre Francais in 1879. Victor Hugo 1802 1885 was a novelist, poet, and dramatist, and the most important of French Romantic writers. In his preface to his historical play Cromwell 1827 Hugo wrote that romanticism is the liberalism of literature. Hugo developed his own version of the historical novel, combining concrete, historical details with vivid, melodramatic, even feverish imagination. Among his best known works are The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Mis rables. Victor Hugo was one of the greatest personalities of French literature. Though not without the faults and eccentricities which frequently characterize great geniuses, he never entered any field of literature without excelling in it. The novel, the lyric, the drama, criticism, all fell from his facile pen without apparent effort.

Things Seen

From The North American Review of Current American Literature, August, 1887: In Things Seen we have some rapid sketches, dated from 1838 to 1875, beginning with a wonderful portrait of Talleyrand and ending with Thiers and Rochefort. It would be strange, indeed, if the personality of a writer who came to earth with that strange miracle, the French Revolution, could ever lose its fascination. These sketches have the power of simplicity. Hugo attempts in them none of those vast and Dore like effects which in his more important works became eventually a blemish. He draws Talleyrand in a few lines: ‘He was of noble descent, like Machiavel, a priest like Gondi, unfrocked like Fouche, witty like Voltaire, and lame like the devil. It might be averred that everything in him was lame like himself. The nobility which he had placed at the service of the Republic, the priesthood which he had dragged through the parade ground, then cast into the gutter, the marriage which he had broken off through a score of exposures and a voluntary separation he received the confession of Mirabeau and the first confidence of Thiers. ‘In the Rue Saint Florentin, Hugo says, there is a palace and a sewer. Talleyrand lived in the palace, where he wove his webs that took in all Europe, but he never looked at the sewer. After his death, the doctors who made the autopsy left his brain on a table, and a servant, wondering what was to be done with it, remembered there was a sewer in the street; he went and threw the brain into the sewer…

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