Victor Hugo | French writer | Britannica.com French writer Sir Stephen Spender Victor Hugo, in full Victor-Marie Hugo (born February 26, 1802, Besançon , France —died May 22, 1885, Paris ), poet, novelist, and dramatist who was the most important of the French Romantic writers. Though regarded in France as one of that country’s greatest poets, he is better known abroad for such novels as Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). Victor Hugo, photograph by Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon). Archives Photographiques, Paris Early years (1802–30) Victor was the third son of Joseph-Léopold-Sigisbert Hugo, a major and, later, general in Napoleon’s army. His childhood was coloured by his father’s constant traveling with the imperial army and by the disagreements that soon alienated his parents from one another. His mother’s royalism and his father’s loyalty to successive governments—the Convention, the Empire, the Restoration—reflected their deeper incompatibility.

It was a chaotic time for Victor, continually uprooted from Paris to set out for Elba or Naples or Madrid, yet always returning to Paris with his mother, whose royalist opinions he initially adopted. The fall of the empire gave him, from 1815 to 1818, a time of uninterrupted study at the Pension Cordier and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, after which he graduated from the law faculty at Paris, where his studies seem to have been purposeless and irregular. Memories of his life as a poor student later inspired the figure of Marius in his novel Les Misérables. From 1816, at least, Hugo had conceived ambitions other than the law. He was already filling notebooks with verses, translations—particularly from Virgil—two tragedies, a play , and elegies. Encouraged by his mother, Hugo founded a review, the Conservateur Littéraire (1819–21), in which his own articles on the poets Alphonse de Lamartine and André de Chénier stand out.

His mother died in 1821, and a year later Victor married a childhood friend, Adèle Foucher, with whom he had five children. In that same year he published his first book of poems, Odes et poésies diverses, whose royalist sentiments earned him a pension from Louis XVIII . Behind Hugo’s concern for classical form and his political inspiration, it is possible to recognize in these poems a personal voice and his own particular vein of fantasy. In 1823 he published his first novel, Han d’Islande, which in 1825 appeared in an English translation as Hans of Iceland. The journalist Charles Nodier was enthusiastic about it and drew Hugo into the group of friends, all devotees of Romanticism , who met regularly at the Bibliothèque de L’Arsenal. While frequenting this literary circle, which was called the Cénacle , Hugo shared in launching a new review of moderate tendencies, the Muse Française (1823–24). In 1824 he published a new verse collection, Nouvelles Odes, and followed it two years later with an exotic romance, Bug-Jargal (Eng. trans. The Slave King).

In 1826 he also published Odes et ballades, an enlarged edition of his previously printed verse, the latest of these poems being brilliant variations on the fashionable Romantic modes of mirth and terror. The youthful vigour of these poems was also characteristic of another collection, Les Orientales (1829), which appealed to the Romantic taste for Oriental local colour. In these poems Hugo, while skillfully employing a great variety of metres in his verse and using ardent and brilliant imagery, was also gradually shedding the legitimist royalism of his youth. It may be noted, too, that “Le Feu du ciel,” a visionary poem, forecast those he was to write 25 years later. The fusion of the contemporary with the apocalyptic was always a particular mark of Hugo’s genius. Britannica Stories Dinosaur Eggs May Have Taken Six Months or More to Hatch Hugo emerged as a true Romantic, however, with the publication in 1827 of his verse drama Cromwell . The subject of this play, with its near-contemporary overtones, is that of a national leader risen from the people who seeks to be crowned king.

But the play’s reputation rested largely on the long, elaborate preface, in which Hugo proposed a doctrine of Romanticism that for all its intellectual moderation was extremely provocative. He demanded a verse drama in which the contradictions of human existence—good and evil, beauty and ugliness, tears and laughter—would be resolved by the inclusion of both tragic and comic elements in a single play. Such a type of drama would abandon the formal rules of classical tragedy for the freedom and truth to be found in the plays of William Shakespeare . Cromwell itself, though immensely long and almost impossible to stage, was written in verse of great force and originality. In fact, the preface to Cromwell, as an important statement of the tenets of Romanticism, has proved far more important than the play itself.

Success (1830–51) Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies The defense of freedom and the cult of an idealized Napoleon in such poems as the ode “À la Colonne” and “Lui” brought Hugo into touch with the liberal group of writers on the newspaper Le Globe, and his move toward liberalism was strengthened by the French king Charles X’s restrictions on the liberty of the press as well as by the censor’s prohibiting the stage performance of his play Marion de Lorme (1829), which portrays the character of Louis XIII unfavourably. Hugo immediately retorted with Hernani , the first performance of which, on February 25, 1830, gained victory for the young Romantics over the Classicists in what came to be known as the battle of Hernani. In this play Hugo extolled the Romantic hero in the form of a noble outlaw at war with society, dedicated to a passionate love and driven on by inexorable fate. The actual impact of the play owed less to the plot than to the sound and beat of the verse, which was softened only in the elegiac passages spoken by Hernani and Doña Sol.

Exploring France: Fact or Fiction? While Hugo had derived his early renown from his plays, he gained wider fame in 1831 with his historical novel Notre-Dame de Paris (Eng. trans. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame), an evocation of life in medieval Paris during the reign of Louis XI . The novel condemns a society that, in the persons of Frollo the archdeacon and Phoebus the soldier, heaps misery on the hunchback Quasimodo and the gypsy girl Esmeralda. The theme touched the public consciousness more deeply than had that of his previous novel, Le Dernier Jour d’un condamné (1829; The Last Days of a Condemned), the story of a condemned man’s last day, in which Hugo launched a humanitarian protest against the death penalty. While Notre-Dame was being written, Louis-Philippe , a constitutional king, had been brought to power by the July Revolution . Hugo composed a poem in honour of this event, Dicté aprés juillet 1830. It was a forerunner of much of his political verse.

Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Four books of poems came from Hugo in the period of the July Monarchy: Les Feuilles d’automne (1831; “Autumn Leaves”), intimate and personal in inspiration; Les Chants du crépuscule (1835; Songs of Twilight), overtly political; Les Voix intérieures (1837; “Inner Voices”), both personal and philosophical; and Les Rayons et les ombres (1840; “Sunlight and Shadows”), in which the poet, renewing these different themes, indulges his gift for colour and picturesque detail. But Hugo was not content merely to express personal emotions; he wanted to be what he called the “sonorous echo” of his time. In his verse political and philosophical problems were integrated with the religious and social disquiet of the period; one poem evoked the misery of the workers, another praised the efficacy of prayer. He addressed many poems to the glory of Napoleon, though he shared with his contemporaries the reversion to republican ideals.

Hugo restated the problems of his century and the great and eternal human questions, and he spoke with a warmhearted eloquence and reasonableness that moved people’s souls. So intense was Hugo’s creative activity during these years that he also continued to pour out plays. There were two motives for this: first, he needed a platform for his political and social ideas, and, second, he wished to write parts for a young and beautiful actress, Juliette Drouet, with whom he had begun a liaison in 1833. Juliette had little talent and soon renounced the stage in order to devote herself exclusively to him, becoming the discreet and faithful companion she was to remain until her death in 1883. The first of these plays was another verse drama, Le Roi s’amuse (1832; Eng. trans. The King’s Fool), set in Renaissance France and depicting the frivolous love affairs of Francis I while revealing the noble character of his court jester. This play was at first banned but was later used by Giuseppe Verdi as the libretto of his opera Rigoletto.

Three prose plays followed: Lucrèce Borgia and Marie Tudor in 1833 and Angelo, tyran de Padoue (“Angelo, Tyrant of Padua”) in 1835. Ruy Blas, a play in verse, appeared in 1838 and was followed by Les Burgraves in 1843. Trending Topics United States presidential election of 1860 Hugo’s literary achievement was recognized in 1841 by his election, after three unsuccessful attempts, to the French Academy and by his nomination in 1845 to the Chamber of Peers. From this time he almost ceased to publish, partly because of the demands of society and political life but also as a result of personal loss: his daughter Léopoldine, recently married, was accidentally drowned with her husband in September 1843. Hugo’s intense grief found some mitigation in poems that later appeared in Les Contemplations , a volume that he divided into “Autrefois” and “Aujourd’hui,” the moment of his daughter’s death being the mark between yesterday and today.

He found relief above all in working on a new novel, which became Les Misérables , published in 1862 after work on it had been set aside for a time and then resumed. With the Revolution of 1848, Hugo was elected a deputy for Paris in the Constituent Assembly and later in the Legislative Assembly . He supported the successful candidacy of Prince Louis-Napoléon for the presidency that year. The more the president evolved toward an authoritarianism of the right, however, the more Hugo moved toward the assembly’s left. When in December 1851 a coup d’état took place, which eventually resulted in the Second Empire under Napoleon III, Hugo made one attempt at resistance and then fled to Brussels. Exile (1851–70) Hugo’s exile lasted until the return of liberty and the reconstitution of the republic in 1870. Enforced at the beginning, exile later became a voluntary gesture and, after the amnesty of 1859, an act of pride. He remained in Brussels for a year until, foreseeing expulsion, he took refuge on British territory.

He first established himself on the island of Jersey , in the English Channel , where he remained from 1852 to 1855. When he was expelled from there, he moved to the neighbouring island of Guernsey . During this exile of nearly 20 years he produced the most extensive part of all his writings and the most original. Victor Hugo, illustration by André Gill, from La Lune, May 19, … © Photos.com/Jupiterimages Immersed in politics as he was, Hugo devoted the first writings of his exile to satire and recent history: Napoléon le Petit (1852), an indictment of Napoleon III, and Histoire d’un crime, a day-by-day account of Louis Bonaparte’s coup. Hugo’s return to poetry was an explosion of wrath: Les Châtiments (1853; “The Punishments”). This collection of poems unleashed his anger against the new emperor and, on a technical level, freed him from his remaining classical prejudices and enabled him to achieve the full mastery of his poetic powers. Les Châtiments ranks among the most powerful satirical poems in the French language .

All Hugo’s future verse profited from this release of his imagination: the tone of this collection of poems is sometimes lyrical, sometimes epic, sometimes moving, but most often virulent, containing an undertone of national and personal frustration. Despite the satisfaction he derived from his political poetry, Hugo wearied of its limitations and, turning back to the unpublished poems of 1840–50, set to work on the volume of poetry entitled Les Contemplations (1856). This work contains the purest of his poetry—the most moving because the memory of his dead daughter is at the centre of the book, the most disquieting, also, because it transmits the haunted world of a thinker. In poems such as “Pleurs dans la nuit” and “La Bouche d’ombre,” he reveals a tormented mind that struggles between doubt and faith in its lonely search for meaning and significance. Hugo’s apocalyptic approach to reality was the source of two epic or metaphysical poems, La Fin de Satan (“The End of Satan”) and Dieu (“God”), both of them confrontations of the problem of evil.

Written between 1854 and 1860, they were not published until after his death because his publisher preferred the little epics based on history and legend contained in the first installment (1859) of the gigantic epic poem La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Centuries), whose second and third installments appeared in 1877 and 1883, respectively. The many poems that make up this epic display all his spiritual power without sacrificing his exuberant capacity to tell a story. Hugo’s personal mythology of the human struggle between good and evil lies behind each of the legends: Eve’s motherhood is exalted in “ Le Sacre de la femme”; mankind liberating itself from all religions in order to attain divine truth is the theme of “ Le Satyre”; and “ Plein Ciel” proclaims, through utopian prediction of men’s conquest of the air, the poet’s conviction of indefinite progress toward the final unity of science with moral awareness. After the publication of three long books of poetry, Hugo returned to prose and took up his abandoned novel, Les Misérables.

Its extraordinary success with readers of every type when it was published in 1862 brought him instant popularity in his own country, and its speedy translation into many languages won him fame abroad. The novel’s name means “the wretched,” or “the outcasts,” but English translations generally carry the French title. The story centres on the convict Jean Valjean , a victim of society who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. A hardened and astute criminal upon his release, he eventually softens and reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and mayor of a northern town. Yet he is stalked obsessively by the detective Javert for an impulsive, regretted former crime, and Jean Valjean eventually sacrifices himself for the sake of his adopted daughter, Cosette, and her husband, Marius. Les Misérables is a vast panorama of Parisian society and its underworld, and it contains many famous episodes and passages, among them a chapter on the Battle of Waterloo and the description of Jean Valjean’s rescue of Marius by means of a flight through the sewers of Paris.

The story line of Les Misérables is basically that of a detective story, but by virtue of its characters, who are sometimes a little larger than life yet always vital and engaging, and by its re-creation of the swarming Parisian underworld, the main theme of humankind’s ceaseless combat with evil clearly emerges. The remaining works Hugo completed in exile include the essay William Shakespeare (1864) and two novels: Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866; The Toilers of the Sea), dedicated to the island of Guernsey and its sailors; and L’Homme qui rit (1869; The Man Who Laughs), a curious baroque novel about the English people’s fight against feudalism in the 17th century, which takes its title from the perpetual grin of its disfigured hero. Hugo’s last novel, Quatre-vingt-treize (1874; Ninety-three), centred on the tumultuous year 1793 in France and portrayed human justice and charity against the background of the French Revolution .

Last years (1870–85) The defeat of France in the Franco-German War and the proclamation of the Third Republic in 1871 brought Hugo back to Paris. He became a deputy in the National Assembly (1871) but resigned the following month. Though he still fought for his old ideals, he no longer possessed the same energies. The trials of recent years had aged him, and there were more to come: in 1868 he had lost his wife, Adèle, a profound sadness to him; in 1871 one son died, as did another in 1873. Though increasingly detached from life around him, the poet of L’Année terrible (1872), in which he recounted the siege of Paris during the “terrible year” of 1870, had become a national hero and a living symbol of republicanism in France. In 1878 Hugo was stricken by cerebral congestion, but he lived on for some years in the Avenue d’Eylau, renamed Avenue Victor-Hugo on his 80th birthday.

In 1885, two years after the death of his faithful companion Juliette, Hugo died and was given a national funeral. His body lay in state under the Arc de Triomphe and was buried in the Panthéon . Victor Hugo. © Photos.com/Jupiterimages Reputation Hugo’s enormous output is unique in French literature; it is said that he wrote each morning 100 lines of verse or 20 pages of prose. “The most powerful mind of the Romantic movement,” as he was described in 1830, laureate and peer of France in 1845, he went on to assume the role of an outlawed sage who, with the easy consciousness of authority, put down his insights and prophetic visions in prose and verse, becoming at last the genial grandfather of popular literary portraiture and the national poet who gave his name to a street in every town in France. The recognition of Hugo as a great poet at the time of his death was followed by a period of critical neglect. A few of his poems were remembered, and Les Misérables continued to be widely read.

The generosity of his ideas and the warmth of their expression still moved the public mind, for Hugo was a poet of the common man and knew how to write with simplicity and power of common joys and sorrows. But there was another side to him—what Paul Claudel called his “panic contemplation” of the universe, the numinous fear that penetrates his sombre poems La Fin de Satan and Dieu. Hugo’s knowledge of the resources of French verse and his technical virtuosity in metre and rhyme, moreover, rescued French poetry from the sterility of the 18th century. Hugo is one of those rare writers who excites both popular and academic audiences alike. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error The Hunchback of Notre Dame ( 1996 ) G | A deformed bell-ringer must assert his independence from a vicious government minister in order to help his friend, a gypsy dancer.

Directors: Gary Trousdale , Kirk Wise Writers: Tab Murphy (animation story by), Victor Hugo (from the novel "Notre Dame de Paris" by) | 23 more credits » Stars: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC Lon Chaney Hunchback Of Notre Dame January 19th at Schlafly Bottleworks 16 January 2017 7:11 PM, -08:00 | WeAreMovieGeeks.com a list of 49 titles created 24 Dec 2010 a list of 42 titles created 15 Aug 2011 a list of 36 titles created 23 Dec 2013 a list of 33 titles created 24 Nov 2014 a list of 36 titles created 01 Dec 2015 Title: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) 6.9/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 Oscar.

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Pat O'Malley When a street urchin vies for the love of a beautiful princess, he uses a genie's magic power to make himself off as a prince in order to marry her. Directors: Ron Clements, John Musker Stars: Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin Directors: Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, and 5 more credits » Stars: Dickie Jones, Christian Rub, Mel Blanc Edit Storyline In 15th century Paris, Clopin the puppeteer tells the story of Quasimodo, the misshapen but gentle-souled bell ringer of Notre Dame, who was nearly killed as a baby by Claude Frollo, the Minister of Justice. But Frollo was forced by the Archdeacon of Notre Dame to raise Quasimodo as his own. Now a young man, Quasimodo is hidden from the world by Frollo in the belltower of the cathedral. But during the Festival of Fools, Quasimodo, cheered on by his gargoyle friends Victor, Hugo, and Laverne, decides to take part in the festivities, where he meets the lovely gypsy girl Esmeralda and the handsome soldier Phoebus.

The three of them find themselves ranged against Frollo's cruelty and his attempts to destroy the home of the gypsies, the Court of Miracles. And Quasimodo must desperately defend both Esmeralda and the very cathedral of Notre Dame. Written by Kathy Li 21 June 1996 (USA) See more » Also Known As: El jorobado de Notre Dame See more » Box Office £1,143,349 (UK) (19 July 1996) Gross: Laverne's name was at first considered to Marie, after Victor Hugo's middle name. See more » Goofs When Quasimodo is seen singing "Out There" on the cathedral's roof we can see a set of copper green statues - the 12 apostles - around the central needle. These statues were not added until the 19th century during a general restoration directed by Viollet-le-Duc, a French architect who had read Victor Hugo's novel and was concerned about the possibility of Notre Dame being demolished, as some authorities of the time had considered. Consequently, it would have been impossible to see those statues at the time the movie is set.

See more » Quotes Frollo : This is an unholy demon. I'm sending it back to hell, where it belongs. The Archdeacon : [singing] See, there, the innocent blood you have spilt on the steps of Notre Dame. Frollo : I am guiltless. She ran, I pursued. The Archdeacon : [singing] Now you would add this child's blood to your guilt on the steps of Notre Dame! Frollo : My conscience is clear. The Archdeacon : [singing] You can lie to yourself and your minions, you can claim that you haven't a qualm, but you never can run from nor hide what you've done from the eyes! [pointing to statues of saints] After the final credits, the gargoyle Hugo says, "Good night, everybody!" See more » Connections Disney's Miracle of a Movie 4 October 2004 | by gpadillo (Portland, Maine) – See all my reviews A risky wedding of wholesome classic animation, to adult and often dark-themed material. The risk paid off and the result is one of the greatest achievements of Disney Studios.

The animation here is first rate and the entire thing is shot like a live-action film with some incredible long shots, great theatrical panning and even at one point, during Quasimodo's song "Out There" a realistic camera flare (I did a double take the first time I saw it!) Hunchback is filled with all sorts of great "tricks" like this. Lighting effects here are nothing short of magnificent  often subtle they sometimes change in an instant dramatically altering the mood of the piece. Frodo's demonic song "Hellfire" is perhaps one the most sinister and frightening moments to emerge from Disney and the animators let loose. The prologue to the movie alone is a minor masterpiece and, like Beauty and the Beast, marvelously prepares us for the whirlwind of a story to take place. The complaints about the singing and dancing gargoyles Victor, Hugo and Laverne, are simply wrongheaded. I read the Hugo classic too, and know they're not in there. What the complainants fail to realize is these gargoyles live only in Quasimodo's imagination. He invented these companions to ease an otherwise tortured, lonely, friendless life.

The culmination of all of this becomes obvious in the spectacular song "A guy like you" which finishes with pigeons flying and hearts and banners and ribbons and Quasimodo being celebrated and then BAM immediately upon the conclusion of the final notes, the room becomes the same dark, dank, splintering tower filled with relics, junk and heartbreak. It's one of the movie's most shattering effects. While deserved praise goes to the animators and crew, the voice talent here is, in my opinion, Disney's very best. Tom Hulce goes to the very soul of Quasimodo and gives a performance that is as poignant and shattering as anything he has done (Hulce also happened to be the best Hamlet I've ever seen.) Certain lines ("I am a monster, you know") will ring in my ear forever. Hulce has a beautiful voice and renders "Out there" with such abandon and vigor it makes my hair stand on end.

In the quiet "Heaven's light" (which sequences into a stunning shot of the bells frantically ringing the opening theme), Hulce brings a fragility to such lines as "no face as hideous as my face, was ever meant for Heaven's light" that only a heart of stone would not be moved. Switching from pathos to rage, Hulce lets us feel the hidden rage and danger that this character also possesses. It is a truly remarkable performance. Demi Moore, Kevin Kline, Tony Jay, Paul Kandel  and the rest of the cast all sound at the top of their game creating wonderful and vivid characters. Alan Menkin and Stephen Schwartz get to the heart of the matter with score and songs  a sound  that are as integral a part of the telling of this story as the animation and voices. Hunchback is a miracle of a movie! 57 of 62 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes "Biography" The Hunchback of Notre Dame (TV Episode 1996) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property.

Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1h Explores the life of Quasimodo, better known as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Hunchback was introduced to the world in French author Victor Hugo's 1831 novel, Notre-Dame de Paris (The ... See full summary » Writer: Title: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (10 Jun 1996) 6.8/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Add Image Add an image Do you have any images for this title? Edit Storyline Explores the life of Quasimodo, better known as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Hunchback was introduced to the world in French author Victor Hugo's 1831 novel, Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

This novel, which portrays Paris life during Louis XI's reign, was a thinly-veiled criticism of French society: a society that, symbolized by the evil archdeacon Frollo and soldier Phoebus, is constantly tormenting the already downtrodden Quasimondo and his gypsy friend Esmerelda. Written by Tiff Banks The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo | PenguinRandomHouse.com Add to Cart About The Hunchback of Notre Dame 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.

About The Hunchback of Notre Dame Before the huge crowd that packed the cathedral square, La Esmeralda stood between two executioners. Suddenly Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, rushed at the executioners and felled them with his enormous fists. He snatched the gypsy girl in one arm and ran with her into the church. A moment later he appeared at the top of the bell tower. Holding the girl above his head, he showed her triumphantly to all of Paris while his thunderous voice roared savagely to the sky: “Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” Set amid the riot, intrigue, and pageantry of medieval Paris, Victor Hugo’s masterful tale of heroism and adventure has been a perennial favorite since its first publication in 1831 and remains one of the most thrilling stories of all time. About The Hunchback of Notre Dame Hugo’s grand medieval melodrama tells the story of the beautiful Esmeralda, a gypsy girl loved by three men: Archdeacon Frollo, his adoptive son Quasimodo, bell-ringer of Notre-Dame cathedral, and Captain Phoebus.

Falsely accused of trying to murder Phoebus, who attempts to rape her, Esmeralda is sentenced to death and rescued from the gallows by Quasimodo who defends her to the last. The subject of many adaptations for stage and screen, this remains perhaps one of the most romantic yet gripping stories ever told. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is an epic of a whole people, with a cast of characters that ranges from the king of France to the beggars who inhabit the Parisian sewers, and at their center the massive figure–a character in itself–of the great Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of the cathedral; his foster father, the tormented archdeacon Frollo; and the beautiful and doomed Gypsy Esmeralda are caught up in a tragedy that still speaks clearly to us of revolution and social strife, of destiny and free will, and of love and loss. The only widely available hardcover edition of Victor Hugo’s masterful historical novel of medieval Paris–one of the most beloved of world classics.

About The Hunchback of Notre Dame The story and characters in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame have resonated with succeeding generations since its publication in 1831. It has tempted filmmakers, and most recently animators, who have exploited its dramatic content to good effect but have inevitably lost some of the grays that make the original text so compelling. From Victor Hugo’s flamboyant imagination came Quasimodo, the grotesque bell ringer; La Esmeralda, the sensuous gypsy dancer; and the haunted archdeacon Claude Frollo. Hugo set his epic tale in the Paris of 1482 under Louis XI and meticulously re-created the day-to-day life of its highest and lowest inhabitants. Written at a time of perennial political upheaval in France, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is the product of an emerging democratic sensibility and prefigures the teeming masterpiece Les Misérables, which Hugo would write thirty years later. He made the cathedral the centerpiece of the novel and called it Notre-Dame de Paris.

(It received its popular English title at the time of its second translation in 1833.) Hugo wrote that his inspiration came from a carving of the word "fatality" in Greek that he had found in the cathedral. The inscription had been eradicated by the time the book was published, and Hugo feared that Notre-Dame’s Gothic splendor might soon be lost to the contemporary fad for tearing down old buildings. Notre-Dame has survived as one of the great monuments of Paris, and Hugo’s novel is a fitting celebration of it, a popular classic that is proving to be just as enduring. The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hard-bound editions of important works of liter-ature and thought.

For the Modern Library’s seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world’s best books, at the best prices. Jacket paintings: (front) detail from Notre Dame by Paul Lecomte, courtesy of David David Gallery/SuperStock; (spine) Victor Hugo, 1833, by Louis Boulanger of Giraudon/Art Resource, N.Y. About The Hunchback of Notre Dame In the dark world of medieval Paris, the deformed bell-ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral heroically fights to save the life of a beautiful Gypsy girl about to be unjustly executed. Told with simple vocabulary and set in large type, this adaptation of the classic tale is perfectly suited for young readers. About The Hunchback of Notre Dame In the dark world of medieval Paris, the deformed bell-ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral heroically fights to save the life of a beautiful Gypsy girl about to be unjustly executed.

Told with simple vocabulary and set in large type, this adaptation of the classic tale is perfectly suited for young readers.

Get the news you want from Penguin Random House Praise “What a beautiful thing Notre-Dame is!” —Gustave Flaubert About Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (1802-85), novelist, poet, playwright, and French national icon, is best known for two of today’s most popular world classics: Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, as well as other works, including The Toilers of the Sea and… More about Victor Hugo About Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (1802-85), novelist, poet, playwright, and French national icon, is best known for two of today’s most popular world classics: Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, as well as other works, including The Toilers of the Sea and… More about Victor Hugo About Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (1802-85), novelist, poet, playwright, and French national icon, is best known for two of today’s most popular world classics: Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, as well as other works, including The Toilers of the Sea and… More about Victor Hugo About Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (1802-85), novelist

, poet, playwright, and French national icon, is best known for two of today’s most popular world classics: Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, as well as other works, including The Toilers of the Sea and… More about Victor Hugo About Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (1802-85), novelist, poet, playwright, and French national icon, is best known for two of today’s most popular world classics: Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, as well as other works, including The Toilers of the Sea and… More about Victor Hugo About Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (1802-85), novelist, poet, playwright, and French national icon, is best known for two of today’s most popular world classics: Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, as well as other works, including The Toilers of the Sea and… More about Victor Hugo Product Details Quasimodo | fictional character | Britannica.com Quasimodo fictional character THIS ARTICLE IS A STUB.

You can learn more about this topic in the related articles below. Similar Topics Quasimodo, title character, the deaf, pitiably ugly protagonist of Victor Hugo ’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831). He became a classic symbol of a courageous heart beneath a grotesque exterior. Learn More in these related articles: Victor Hugo (French writer) February 26, 1802 Besançon, France May 22, 1885 Paris poet, novelist, and dramatist who was the most important of the French Romantic writers. Though regarded in France as one of that country’s greatest poets, he is better known abroad for such novels as Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) and... in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (film by Dieterle [1939]) Laughton portrayed an unlikely hero: the kind, misunderstood, and pitiable hunchback Quasimodo, the bell ringer at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. He meets and falls in love with a beautiful Rom (gypsy) named Esmeralda (played by Maureen O’Hara).

However, Quasimodo’s adoptive father figure, the sexually repressed Frollo (Cedric Hardwicke), is determined to destroy the girl. After she falls in... Corrections? Updates? Help us improve this article! Contact our editors with your feedback. MEDIA FOR: You have successfully emailed this. Error when sending the email. Try again later. Edit Mode Submit Tips For Editing We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Encyclopædia Britannica articles are written in a neutral objective tone for a general audience. You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered. Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources. At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context. (Internet URLs are the best.) Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. Submit Thank You for Your Contribution!

Our editors will review what you've submitted, and if it meets our criteria, we'll add it to the article. Please note that our editors may make some formatting changes or correct spelling or grammatical errors, and may also contact you if any clarifications are needed. Uh Oh There was a problem with your submission. Please try again later. Close Date Published: February 15, 2011 URL: Access Date: January 16, 2017 Share Notre-Dame of Paris by Victor Hugo | PenguinRandomHouse.com Add to Cart About Notre-Dame of Paris More commonly known as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo’s Romantic novel of dark passions and unrequited love In the vaulted Gothic towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral lives Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer. Mocked and shunned for his appearance, he is pitied only by Esmerelda, a beautiful gypsy dancer to whom he becomes completely devoted. Esmerelda, however, has also attracted the attention of the sinister archdeacon Claude Frollo, and when she rejects his lecherous approaches, Frollo hatches a plot to destroy her, that only Quasimodo can prevent.

Victor Hugo’s sensational, evocative novel brings life to the medieval Paris he loved, and mourns its passing in one of the greatest historical romances of the nineteenth century. John Sturrock’s clear, contemporary translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing it as a passionate novel of ideas, written in defence of Gothic architecture and of a burgeoning democracy, and demonstrating that an ugly exterior can conceal moral beauty. This revised edition also includes further reading and a chronology of Hugo’s life. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Get the news you want from Penguin Random House About Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (1802-85), novelist, poet, playwright, and French national icon, is best known for two of today’s most popular world classics: Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, as well as other works, including The Toilers of the Sea and… More about Victor Hugo Product Details

Question: The novel Notre Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo, is better known by what title in the English-speaking world ?
Answer: THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME