The History of a Crime (Dodo Press) [Paperback]

Victor Hugo (Author), T. H. Joyce (Translator), Arthur Locker (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2008

Victor-Marie Hugo (1802-1885) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner, and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France. In France, Hugo's literary reputation rests primarily on his poetic and dramatic output and only secondarily on his novels. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des Siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem, and Hugo is sometimes identified as the greatest French poet. In the Englishspeaking world his best-known works are often the novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (translated into English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) (1899). Though extremely conservative in his youth, Hugo moved to the political left as the decades passed; he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time. He is buried in the Panthéon. Amongst his other works are: Napoleon the Little (1852), The Man Who Laughs (1869), The History of a Crime (1877), Poems (1888) and The Memoirs of Victor Hugo.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Victor-Marie Hugo is known abroad for his novels, especially Les Mis_rables and Notre-Dame de Paris, but in France for his poetry and plays. More a leftist with each passing year, he was forced into exile during the reign of Napoleon III and lived briefly in Belgium. Hugo was a political man, speaking out against the death penalty and in favor of pacifism and freedom of the press. In his youth, he was a Catholic but later was a Spiritualist and a Deist. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 484 pages
• Publisher: Dodo Press (April 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1406568945
• ISBN-13: 978-1406568943
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,447,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating document and captivating documentary novel, May 18, 2005

By 

Peter Dale (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of a Crime (The Testimony of an Eye-Witness) (Paperback)

Victor Hugo's long and chequered life was filled with experiences of the most diverse character - literature and politics, the court and the street, parliament and the theatre, labour, struggles, disappointments, exile and triumphs.

Victor Hugo's HISTOIRE D'UN CRIME (History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness) is an impassioned recording of the December 1852 coup d'etat that brought the usurper he called "Napoleon le petit" to power, and sent Hugo into an eighteen year exile. The work was written in the few months following Hugo's flight, but only published in 1877, when Hugo feared a similar takeover by Marechal Mac-Mahon, who had threatened the dissolution of the republican-dominated Chambre des deputes (parliament).

During his exile on the island of Guernsey, he completed, among others, his longest and most famous work, Les Misérables (1862), and also The Man Who Laughs (L'Homme qui rit; 1869), also known as "By Order of the King", a historic novel with fictional characters, set in England 1688-1705.

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (1808-1873), the main character of "History of a Crime", was elected President (1848 - 1852) of the Second Republic of France, and subsequently accepted the title of the Emperor (1852 - 1870), reigning as Napoléon III.