The Last Day of a Condemned Man and Claude Gueux

by Victor Hugo, C. E. Wilbour (Translator)

Overview

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was a celebrated French novelist, poet, playwright, dramatist, essayist and statesman whose work ushered in the Romantic literary movement in France, one of the most influential movements in French and all European literary history. Like many of his time, Hugo promoted the virtues of liberty, individualism, spirit and nature in rebellion of the conservative political and religious establishments of Imperial France, and eventually became known as one of the most gifted and influential writers of his time. "The Last Day of a Condemned Man" is one of Hugo's first mature works of fiction, written in 1829, and recounts the thoughts of a condemned man as he prepares for death. The short novel would later have profound influence on writers like Albert Camus, Charles Dickens and Fyodor Dostoevsky. "Claude Gueux" is a short story, written in 1834. It contains Hugo's early thoughts on society injustice, which would be refined and fleshed out over the course of a few decades, resulting in the publication of "Les Misérables" in 1862.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781420940121
Publisher:	Digireads.com Publishing
Publication date:	05/19/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was an internationally renowned novelist, playwright and poet known for his political activism and human rights advocacy. "If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away," the larger–than–life Victor Hugo once confessed. Indeed, this 19th–century French author's books – from the epic drama Les Misérables to the classic unrequited love story The Hunchback of Notre Dame – have spanned the ages, their themes of morality and redemption as applicable to our times as to his.

Date of Birth:

February 26, 1802

Date of Death:

May 22, 1885

Place of Birth:

Besançon, France

Place of Death:

Paris, France

Education:

Pension Cordier, Paris, 1815-18