On 22 May 1885 Victor Hugo died, prompting international mourning unprecedented for a literary figure. Within an hour the periodical Gil Blas published a special edition, which sold out everywhere, and soon millions flocked to Paris in a spectacular...

No century of French literature has been better represented by a single author than the nineteenth, and no writer better personifies the French nineteenth century than Victor Hugo. His life span corresponds closely to the century's limits; for fully...

Victor Hugo, one of France's most prolific nineteenth-century authors, wrote novels, poems, and dramatic works. His career as a playwright began in 1816 and ended almost sixty years later. The dramas and prefaces that he wrote between 1826 and 1843...

Today is Wednesday, June 13, the 164th day of 2007. There are 201 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On June 13, 1966, the Supreme Court issued its landmark Miranda v. Arizona decision, ruling that criminal suspects had to be informed of their constitutional...

Today is Thursday, Sept. 20, the 263rd day of 2007. There are 102 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On Sept. 20, 1519, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew set out from Spain on five ships on a voyage to find a western...

The Greek capital hardly springs immediately to mind as the home for a shrine to the 19th century Swedish industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel. But letters from Victor Hugo, Russian oil field maps and explosives factory share certificates will...

Ragged pants and T-shirts dangle from a tree outside an apartment block. Pigeons feast on garbage dumped from windows. Streaks of graffiti blacken dank entryways like screams."Welcome to our culture," says a sardonic sign stuck on a lamp post.As France heads into a fateful presidential...

In the following essay, Denommé examines Hugo's poetic oeuvre, stating that it is representative of the development of French Romanticism. The critic concludes: "Hugo's poetry invites us to strip away the restrictions dictated to us by practical reason and experience in order to view the world more directly with our emotions."

In this excerpt from a review originally published in 1873, Dowden traces Hugo's development as a poet.

In the following excerpt, Brereton surveys Hugo's poetry, comparing his works to those of such other French poets as Charles Baudelaire and Alphonse de Lamartine.

An overview of the life of author, poet, playwright, husband and politician Victor Hugo. Examines his creative life, his private life and his politics.