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 fifty years Hugo wrote abundantly, and when he died, the nation honored him with the ceremonies ordinarily reserved for heads of state. Hugo was a royalist, a Bonapartist, a republican; he usefully supported or actively opposed all the governments that took shape during his lifetime; he saw two monarchies, two republics, two empires, two revolutions, a coup d';état, and the Commune, with its bloody repression. Not simply was Hugo an observer of and participant in his times, he was also one of the most prolific writers in history, but, unlike many other prolific writers, his works are both varied and important; he was a poet, a novelist...