Penguin.com (usa)

About Victor Hugo
Books by Victor Hugo
Reading Group Guide
Author, Victor Hugo - Leon-Joseph Bonnat; Musee de Versailles ?Roger-Viollet, Paris
Image Information

Victor Hugo

About Victor Hugo

An Interview with Victor Hugo

More About Victor Hugo

Born in 1802, the son of a high officer in Napoleon’s army, Victor Hugo spent his childhood against a background of military life in Elba, Corsica, Naples, and Madrid. After the Napoleonic defeat, the Hugo family settled in straitened circumstances in Paris, where, at the age of fifteen, Victor Hugo commenced his literary career with a poem submitted to a contest sponsored by the Académie Française. Twenty-four years later, Hugo was elected to the Académie, having helped revolutionize French literature with his poems, plays, and novels. Entering politics, he won a seat in the National Assembly in 1848; but in 1851, he was forced to flee the country because of his opposition to Louis Napoleon. In exile on the Isle of Guernsey, he became a symbol of French resistance to tyranny; upon his return to Paris after the Revolution of 1870, he was greeted as a national hero. He continued to serve in public life and to write with unabated vigor until his death in 1885. He was buried in the Pantheon with every honor the French nation could bestow. Find Books by Victor Hugo

Sign Up
  • Penguin Newsletter

Sign up for the Penguin newsletter here»

Send this page to a friend
Author Image: Victor Hugo - Leon-Joseph Bonnat; Musee de Versailles ?Roger-Viollet, Paris

The Man Without A Face
$25.95 | buy now

The Man Without A Face

Masha Gessen

From one of Moscow's most renowned and highly regarded journalists, The Man Without A Face is the chilling account of how a small-minded, low-level KGB operative maneuvered his way into absolute—and absolutely corrupt—power.

On Canaan's Side
$25.95 | buy now

On Canaan's Side

Sebastian Barry

From the two-time Man Booker shortlisted author of The Secret Scripture comes a magnificent new novel that is the story of the twentieth century in America. Read an Excerpt.