Victor Hugo

French Romantic novelist and poet whose Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame are among the most widely read novels in history — combining literary ambition with social advocacy for the poor and political commitment to republican democracy.

Created in Les Misérables the most influential popular novel of social conscience in the Western tradition — Jean Valjean as the redeemed ex-convict, Javert as implacable law without mercy — and embedded a radical social message (the poor deserve dignity, the law is not justice) in a gripping narrative that has never gone out of print.