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Victor Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) was 
a French author, the most important of the Romantic 
authors in the French language. His major works 
include the novels The Hunchback of Notre Dame and 
Les Misérables, and a large body of poetry.

Life and work
Hugo was born in Besançon, Doubs in the region of 
Franche-Comté. He lived in exile during the reign 
of Napoleon III - in Jersey 1852-1855 and in 
Guernsey from 1855 until his return to France in 
1870.

Although Hugo is better known to the English-speaking 
world as a novelist, it was as a poet that he broke 
new ground. The French poetic traditions were as 
well-established in his time as the English ones 
were before the time of the Romantic poets, and 
Hugo's contribution may be compared with that of 
Wordsworth. He believed that the poet's purpose 
should be two-fold:

To echo universal sentiment by revealing his own 
feelings, uniting the voices of mankind, nature 
and history. 
To guide the reader: "faire flamboyer l'avenir" - 
to lead the way. 
In his epic, La Légende des Siècles, he attempts, 
by reference to historical events, to depict 
humanity's struggle to emerge from obscurity into 
enlightenment.

The term 'United States of Europe' (États-Unis 
d’Europe), made famous in the 20th century by 
Winston Churchill and the European Union, was in 
fact first used by Victor Hugo, at the International 
Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849 and during 
speeches at the French National Assembly, including 
those on September 4, 1869 and March 1, 1871.

Hugo was the Honorary President and founder of the 
Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale 
(ALAI) in 1878 in Paris which gave itself the 
objective of creating an international convention 
for the protection of literary and artistic 
properties which was achieved eight years later 
with the Berne Convention on September 9, 1886.

Hugo died in Paris on May 22, 1885. His life, and 
the spontaneous national mourning which followed, 
inspired the French government to reinvent the 
Panthéon in Paris as a temple in homage to the 
great men (and, eventually, women) of France. He 
is buried in its necropolis.

Hugo also became one of the three primary saints 
worshipped in the Vietnamese religion Cao Dai.

Published during lifetime
Nouvelles Odes (1824) 
Bug-Jargal (1826) 
Odes et Ballades (1826) 
Cromwell (play) (1827) 
Les Orientales (1829) 
Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (1829) 
Hernani (1830), (this play is the source for 
Verdi's opera Ernani) — at the time this drama 
was staged, it was so insurrectionist in style 
and content that it caused nightly riots at the 
Comédie Française.) 
Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), (The Hunchback of 
Notre Dame) 
Marion Delorme (1831) 
Les Feuilles d'automne 
Le Roi s'amuse (1832) 
Lucrèce Borgia (1833) 
Marie Tudor (1833) 
Étude sur Mirabeau (1834) 
Littérature et philosophie mêlées (1834) 
Claude Gueux (1834) 
Angelo (1835) 
Les Chants du crépuscule (1835) 
Les Voix intérieures (1837) 
Ruy Blas (1838) 
Les Rayons et les ombres (1840) 
Le Rhin (1842) 
Les Burgraves (1843) 
Napoléon le Petit (1852) 
Les Châtiments (1853) 
Lettres à Louis Bonaparte (1855) 
Les Contemplations (1856) 
La Légende des siècles (1859) 
Les Misérables (1862), (on which the very 
successful musical of the same name is 
based) 
William Shakespeare (essay) (1864) 
Les Chansons des rues et des bois (1865) 
Les Travailleurs de la Mer (1866), (Toilers of 
the Sea) 
Paris-Guide (1867) 
L'Homme qui rit (1869), (The Man Who Laughs) 
L'Année terrible (1872) 
Quatrevingt-Treize (1874) 
Mes Fils (1874) 
Actes et paroles — Avant l'exil (1875) 
Actes et paroles - Pendant l'exil (1875) 
Actes et paroles - Depuis l'exil (1876) 
La Légende des Siècles 2e série (1877) 
L'Art d'être grand-père (1877) 
Histoire d'un crime 1re partie (1877) 
Histoire d'un crime 2e partie (1878) 
Le Pape (1878) 
Religions et religion (1880) 
L'Âne (1880) 
Les Quatres vents de l'esprit (1881) 
Torquemada (1882) 
La Légende des siècles Tome III (1883) 
L'Archipel de la Manche (1883) 

Published posthumously
Théâtre en liberté (1886) 
La fin de Satan (1886) 
Choses vues - 1re série (1887) 
Toute la lyre (1888) 
Alpes et Pyrénées (1890) 
Dieu (1891) 
France et Belgique (1892) 
Toute la lyre - nouvelle série (1893) 
Correspondances - Tome I (1896) 
Correspondances - Tome II (1898) 
Les années funestes (1898) 
Choses vues - 2e série (1900) 
Post-scriptum de ma vie (1901) 
Dernière Gerbe (1902) 
Mille francs de récompense (1934) 
Océan. Tas de pierres (1942) 
Pierres (1951)