Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) was a Romantic-era French poet, writer, essayist, playwright, and dramatist. He wrote in a wide range of genres during the span of his creative career, including songs, satires, epics, philosophical poetry, epigrams, novels, history, critical essays, political speeches, funeral orations, diaries, and correspondence public and private, as well as verse and prose dramas.

Hugo is often regarded as one of France's greatest and most well-known writers. His most renowned works outside of France are the novels Les Misérables (1862) and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris), both published in 1831. Hugo's poetry volumes, such as Les Contemplations (The Contemplations) and La Légende des siècles, are well-known in France (The Legend of the Ages). With his plays Cromwell and Hernani, Hugo was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement. Many of his works, especially the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris, have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death