Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

Notre-Dame de Paris

byVictor Hugo, Julie Rose (Translator)

Format:

Paperback

Pre-order:

AmazonOpens in a new tabBlackwellsOpens in a new tabBookshop.orgOpens in a new tabFoylesOpens in a new tabHiveOpens in a new tabWaterstonesOpens in a new tabWHSmithOpens in a new tab
In the vaulted Gothic towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral lives Quasimodo, the hunchbacked
bell ringer. Mocked and shunned for his appearance, he is pitied only by Esmeralda, a
beautiful Roma street dancer to whom he becomes completely devoted. Esmeralda,
however, has also attracted the attention of the sinister archdeacon Claude Frollo, and
when she rejects his lecherous approaches, Frollo hatches a plot to destroy her that only
Quasimodo can prevent. Victor Hugo's masterpiece brings to life the medieval Paris he
loved, and mourns its passing, in one of the greatest historical romances of the nineteenth
century.

About Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo was born in Besançon, France in 1802. In 1822 he published his first collection of poetry and in the same year, he married his childhood friend, Adèle Foucher. In 1831 he published his most famous youthful novel, Notre-Dame de Paris. A royalist and conservative as a young man, Hugo later became a committed social democrat and was exiled from France as a result of his political activities. In 1862, he wrote his longest and greatest novel, Les Misérables. After his death in 1885, his body lay in state under the Arc de Triomphe before being buried in the Panthéon.
Details