Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo, was a French Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician, best known for the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Miserables (1862). In France he is also renowned for poetry collections such as Les Contemplations, and he stood at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with works including the play Cromwell and the drama Hernani; his writing has inspired works such as the musicals Les Miserables and Notre-Dame de Paris. Though a committed royalist in his youth, he became a passionate republican who served as both deputy and senator, campaigned against capital punishment and slavery, and was given a state funeral attended by over two million people upon his death in 1885.