Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was the greatest French writer of the nineteenth century: poet, novelist and playwright, leader of the Romantic movement and author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. An opponent of Napoleon III, he spent nearly twenty years in exile, and his funeral in 1885 was one of the largest Paris has ever seen.
Genres
poetry, novels and stories, drama
A child prodigy
Victor Hugo was born in Besançon in 1802, the son of an officer in Napoleon's armies. His childhood was spent between Paris, Italy and Spain, following his father's postings. At fourteen he wrote in a notebook that he wanted to be Chateaubriand or nothing.
He published his first collection of odes at twenty, which earned him a pension from King Louis XVIII, and married his childhood friend Adèle Foucher. In 1827 the preface to his play Cromwell became the manifesto of French Romanticism.
Fame
On 25 February 1830 the premiere of his play Hernani set off a battle in the theatre between young Romantics and supporters of classical tragedy. The following year he published Notre-Dame de Paris, known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which helped save the cathedral from neglect.
His collections of poems and plays made him the leading writer of his age. In 1843 his eldest daughter Léopoldine drowned in the Seine with her husband, a grief that haunts his poetry. He became a peer of France and then a republican deputy after the revolution of 1848.
Exile and return
When Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte seized power in December 1851, Hugo fled. He lived in exile on Jersey and then Guernsey for nearly twenty years, writing Les Châtiments against the emperor, the poems of Les Contemplations, and in 1862 Les Misérables, the story of the former convict Jean Valjean.
He returned to Paris in 1870 after the fall of the Empire and was greeted as a hero. Senator of the Third Republic, he died in May 1885. Two million people followed his coffin, which lay in state under the Arc de Triomphe before being taken to the Panthéon.
Anecdotes
The shortest letter
According to a famous anecdote, after the publication of Les Misérables in 1862, Hugo, in exile, wrote to his publisher a letter consisting of a single question mark, to ask how the book was selling. The publisher replied with a single exclamation mark.
Hauteville House
During his exile on Guernsey, Hugo bought Hauteville House in St Peter Port, which he decorated himself with carved wood, tapestries and china. From the glass room on the top floor he could see the coast of France. The house now belongs to the city of Paris and is a museum.
Frequently asked questions
What are Victor Hugo's most famous works?
The novels Les Misérables (1862) and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), the poetry collections Les Contemplations and Les Châtiments, and the plays Hernani and Ruy Blas.
Why did Victor Hugo live in exile?
Because he opposed Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup of December 1851 and refused to return while he reigned as Napoleon III.
Which translation of Les Misérables is quoted on Guesseo?
The translation by Isabel Florence Hapgood, published in 1887.