Victor Hugo is most well known for writing his iconic masterpiece, Les Misérables. Another notable work of his is the Notre Dame de Paris, or as we know it, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Aside from these two, there are many poems and smaller works from him, with a few of the prominent ones linked below. However, there is a great deal of history and adventure in Hugo’s life, and in order to understand some of how he came about these great works, we must have his backstory.
A Timeline of Hugo’s Development
Well before he was banished from his homeland, Victor Hugo was regarded as a humanitarian, a contrarian, a genius, and a rebel for many of his underlying themes and the sentiments he expressed. It began with poetry and essays, ranging from outright tragedies to the defense of the Royalist patriotism that had been instilled in him via his mother. From there, his works and writing grew into published articles, manuscripts, and collections, with one of his most prominent works, The Odes. As he grew in both name and fortitude, his initial Royalist opinions began to sway and then crumble as he began to value the country of France over both the empire and the various parties.
As his political opinions began to change, so did his personal views and, with that, his writings. In 1820, he wrote a powerful piece called The Last Day of a Condemned Man, in which he sympathized and greatly detailed the experience of someone facing the death penalty. From there (over a matter of years), his opinions and tongue snowballed into various critiques and opposition against Prince Louis Napoleon until he at last had to flee from his own country.
Now safe in Brussels and later reunited with his sons, he once again put his pen to paper and began to compile a complete narrative of all that was happening at the time under the name L’Histoire d’un Crime. He wrote a scathing, satirical piece on the “tyrannical prince” titled Napoléan le Petit, which unfortunately led to him once again fleeing for his safety and freedom, all the way to the isle of Jersey and then Guernsey in England. It is here that his most famous piece, Les Misérables, had started many years before, but as many grand works do, it metamorphosed and grew from its original two octavo volumes to the ten of today. Within it is a powerful story of, yes, banishment in a sense. It also speaks about the labors and hardships of the disenfranchised folk and the highest morality a man can possess in the form of its main character, Jean Valjean.
With all of his political leanings, clever words, and genuine affection for the hardships of the individual, it is hardly surprising that Victor Hugo would take the sum of his thoughts and experiences and bind it into such a novel. Nor is it surprising that the moral threads throughout would still speak to people today. One can only imagine what the learnéd poet, writer, and humanitarian would say in today’s world.
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