Victor Hugo

French Poet and Novelist

Victor Hugo was born on February 26th, 1802 in Besancon, France. He was a poet, novelist, and dramatist and the most important French romantic writer of the 19th Century. Hugo is best known for his novels "Notre-Dame de Paris" (1831) and "Les Miserables" (1862). He created poems and novels that integrated political and philosophical questions with stories of his times.He wrote with simplicity and power of the joys and sorrows of life. Every morning he would write at least 100 lines of verse or 20 pages of prose.

A recurring theme in Hugo's work is humanity's ceaseless combat with evil. Readers today are captured by the larger than life characters and re-creation of the swarming underworld of 19th Century Paris found in "Les Miserables".

He died in Paris on the 23rd May, 1885 at the age of 83. Over three million people attended his State funeral.

Victor Hugo's tomb in the Pantheon, Paris.