Books with author Victor Hugo

This eBook edition of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices.The Hunchback of Notre Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris, "Our Lady of Paris") is a novel by Victor Hugo published in 1831. The French title refers to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, on which the story is focused, and it is also a metaphor for Esmeralda, who is the center of the human drama within the story. The story begins on Epiphany (6 January), 1482, the day of the Feast of Fools in Paris, France. Quasimodo, a deformed hunchback who is the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, is introduced by his crowning as the Pope of Fools. Esmeralda, a beautiful Gypsy with a kind and generous heart, captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire, a poor street poet, but especially those of Quasimodo and his adoptive father, Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame... This e-book presents the classic and unabridged translation by Isabel F. Hapgood, carefully formatted and with a detailed table of contents.

Les Misérables (1862) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo, and among the best-known novels of the 19th century. It follows the lives and interactions of several French characters over a twenty year period in the early 19th century that starts in the year of Napoleon's final defeat. Principally focusing on the struggles of the protagonist—ex-convict Jean Valjean—who seeks to redeem himself, the novel also examines the impact of Valjean's actions for the sake of social commentary. It examines the nature of good, evil, and the law, in a sweeping story that expounds upon the history of France, architecture of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, law, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Les Misérables is known to many through its numerous stage and screen adaptations, of which the most famous is the stage musical of the same name, sometimes abbreviated "Les Mis" or "Les Miz" .

One of the most widely read novels of all time, Les Misérables 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 Misérables, an enormous melodrama set against the background of political upheaval in France following the rule of Napoleon I. Les Misérables 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 Miserables is a rich, emotional novel that captures nothing less than the entirety of life in nineteenth-century France.

Though written at the beginning of the Romantic era, this remarkable French historical romance takes place in medieval Paris at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It is there that the deformed Quasimodo has gone deaf ringing the grand church's bells for his adoptive father Dom Claude Frollo. The severe priest, though he looks after the grotesque Quasimodo, ignores the public persecution that the man suffers whenever he leaves the Cathedral, and it is at just such moment of vulnerability that the lovely young Gypsy Esmeralda shows Quasimodo an act of kindness that leads to his inner transformation. Though still hated by everyone, Quasimodo's sleeping soul awakens and grows in an extraordinary conversion to the sublime, allowing him to care for and protect Esmeralda even as those who admired her come to fear and despise her. A commanding and epic melodrama fully utilizing the extremes of passion and religion in the bygone Gothic era, Hugo's novel explores social justice through the suffering of his characters, though with a compassion and melancholy that belies the author's conviction in the impossibility of salvation in his existing world.

Les Misérables is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, focusing on the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption. Examining the nature of law and grace, the novel elaborates upon the history of France, the architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love.More than a quarter of the novel is devoted to essays that argue a moral point or display Hugo's encyclopedic knowledge. The topics Hugo addresses include cloistered religious orders, the construction of the Paris sewers, argot, and the street urchins of Paris. Even when not turning to other subjects outside his narrative, Hugo sometimes interrupts the straightforward recitation of events, his voice and control of the story line unconstrained by time and sequence. The story begins in 1815 in Digne, as the peasant Jean Valjean, just released from 19 years' imprisonment in the galleys—five for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family and fourteen more for numerous escape attempts—is turned away by innkeepers because his yellow passport marks him as a former convict. He sleeps on the street, angry and bitter.Digne's benevolent Bishop Myriel gives him shelter. At night, Valjean runs off with Myriel's silverware. When the police capture Valjean, Myriel pretends that he has given the silverware to Valjean and presses him to take two silver candlesticks as well, as if he had forgotten to take them. The police accept his explanation and leave. Myriel tells Valjean that his life has been spared for God, and that he should use money from the silver candlesticks to make an honest man of himself. Six years pass and Valjean, using the alias Monsieur Madeleine, has become a wealthy factory owner and is appointed mayor.