Victor Hugo

Though known as the author of Notre Dame de Paris and Les Miserables, Victor Hugo was primarily a poet - one of the most important and prolific in French history, Illustrated with Hugo's own paintings and graphic work, this lucid, award-winning translation of a generous selection of Hugo's poetry pays homage to a towering figure of nineteenth-century literature, capturing the energy, beauty, and drama of a visionary artist.

Pour Les Contemplations, Victor Hugo avait espere que le printemps jersiais lui redonnerait, apres la tourmente de Chatiments, la serenite. Il ne pouvait pas prevoir qu'en octobre 1855, il serait expulse de Jersey et devrait se refugier a Guernesey, ce qui, d'ailleurs n'interrompit pas son travail. Menant de front les projets, augmentant sans cesse sa " grande pyramide ", Hugo reunit pour la publication une equipe comprenant Hetzel et des amis comme Noel Parfait et surtout Paul Meurice. Samuel continua de suivre les oeuvres imprimees par lui. Il y eut double publication, a Bruxelles et a Paris. Exploites, harceles, flattes, les partenaires benevoles travaillerent avec l'enthousiasme de la conviction. Hugo savait que le succes dependait de la strategie commerciale et de l'appareil publicitaire dont il pouvait disposer, cajolant les journalistes amis et s'assurant que des articles paraitraient dans la presse hostile: en France, un ereintage etait preferable au silence. Le nouveau recueil lyrique, paru le 23 avril 1856, fut un enorme succes litteraire et financier. A Guernesey, ou il s'etait refugie au debut de novembre 1855, Hugo acheta une maison, qu'il baptisa Hauteville House, et fit savoir par voie de presse qu'elle avait ete payee par les profits des Contemplations. Ce second volume de la correspondance entre Victor Hugo et ses editeurs est du a Sheila Gaudon, specialiste reconnue de la correspondance de Victor Hugo. Il comporte de nombreux documents inedits et sort de l'ombre une foule de personnages qui sont les auxiliaires discrets du succes litteraire.

Robert Louis Stevenson once said of "Les Miserables, "Take it for all in all, there are few books in the world that can be compared with it." A story of poverty, wretchedness, and, ultimately, the human will to overcome any condition and climb toward redemption, "Les Miserables is the inspiration of several film adaptations, and the second-longest running musical in Broadway history. Laurence Porter received his doctorate from Harvard, and has taught French Literature and the Romance and Classical Languages. His numerous publications include "The Literary Dream in French Romanticism: A Psychological Interpretation, "The Crisis of French Symbolism, and "Victor Hugo.

Quasimodo, the reclusive bell-ringer of Notre-Dame, tries desparately to save the beautiful gypsy, Esmerelda--with whom he's fallen in love--from her unjust and untimely death.

This generous, varied selection of poems by one of France's best-loved and most reviled poets is presented with facing originals, detailed notes, and a lively introduction to the author's life and work. Steven Monte presents more than eighty poems in translation and in the original French, taken from the earliest poetic publications of the 1820's, through collections published during exile, to works published in the years following Hugo's death in 1883. The introduction provides helpful background information about Hugo's life and work, the selection, and what is involved in translating a poet whose effortless rhymes are central to the poetry's power. Detailed notes at the back of the volume offer information about the poems and their publishing and historical contexts. This is an ideal introduction to a poet whose work, for all its renown, remains for Anglophone readers undiscovered.