Victor Hugo

(1802—1885)

France

Biography

Victor-Marie Hugo was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France. In France, Hugo's literary fame rests not only upon his novels, but also upon his poetic and dramatic achievements. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem, and Hugo is sometimes identified as the greatest French poet. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (known in English also as The Hunchback of Notre Dame). Though a committed conservative royalist when he was young, Hugo grew more liberal as the decades passed; he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time. He is buried in the Panthéon. (source: Wikipedia)

ePub Books Available by Victor Hugo

6 Titles Online

The History of a Crime [en] (1877)

The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo was published in 1877, long after it was written. It is an account of the 1852 coup d'état that brought Napoleon into power and forced Hugo into an exile of eighteen years. The work covers those momentous early days of...

Genres: History, Political

The Hunchback of Notre Dame Book Cover Image

The Hunchback of Notre Dame [en] (1831)

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...

Genre: Romance

Les Misérables [en] (1862)

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...

Genre: Classic Literature

The Man Who Laughs [en] (1869)

The Man Who Laughs is a romantic masterpiece of a man whose face has been disfigured into a laughing mask in childhood, the loyal blind girl who gives him her heart, and the cruelty of the privileged aristocracy whose laughingstock and saviour he becomes, is remarkable in its emotional...

Genre: Romance

The Memoirs of Victor Hugo Book Cover Image

The Memoirs of Victor Hugo [en] (1899)

This volume of memoirs has a double character--historical and intimate. The life of a period, the XIX Century, is bound up in the life of a man, VICTOR HUGO. This is not a diary of events arranged in chronological order, nor is it a continuous autobiography. It is less and it is more, or...

Genre: Biography/Memoir

Napoleon the Little [en] (1852)

Napoleon the Little was an influential political pamphlet by Victor Hugo which condemned the reign of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. Hugo lived in exile in Guernsey for most of Napoleon III's reign, and his criticism of the monarch was significant as he was one of the most prominent...

Genre: Political