Editing Victor Hugo (section)

== Career ==
Hugo published his first novel (''[[Hans of Iceland]]'', 1823) the year following his marriage, and his second three years later (''[[Bug-Jargal]]'', 1826). Between 1829 and 1840, he published five more volumes of poetry: [[Les Orientales]], 1829; [[Les Feuilles d'automne]], 1831; {{ill|Les Chants du crépuscule|fr}}, 1835; [[Les Voix intérieures]], 1837; and [[Les Rayons et les Ombres]], 1840. This cemented his reputation as one of the greatest elegiac and lyric poets of his time.

Like many young writers of his generation, Hugo was profoundly influenced by {{lang|fr|[[François-René de Chateaubriand]]|italic=no}}, the famous figure in the literary movement of [[Romanticism]] and France's pre-eminent literary figure during the early 19th century. In his youth, Hugo resolved to be "{{lang|fr|Chateaubriand|italic=no}} or nothing", and his life would come to parallel that of his predecessor in many ways. Like {{lang|fr|Chateaubriand|italic=no}}, Hugo furthered the cause of Romanticism, became involved in politics (though mostly as a champion of [[Republicanism]]), and was forced into exile due to his political stances. Along with Chateaubriand he attended the [[Coronation of Charles X]] in [[Reims]] in 1825.<ref>Pearson, Roger. ''Unacknowledged Legislators: The Poet as Lawgiver in Post-Revolutionary France''. Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 138.</ref>

The precocious passion and eloquence of Hugo's early work brought success and fame at an early age. His first collection of poetry ({{lang|fr|[[Odes et poésies diverses]]}}) was published in 1822 when he was only 20 years old and earned him a royal pension from [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]]. Though the poems were admired for their spontaneous fervor and fluency, the collection that followed four years later in 1826 ({{lang|fr|[[Odes et Ballades]]}}) revealed Hugo to be a great poet, a natural master of lyric and creative song.
[[File:Achille_Devéria,_Victor_Hugo,_1829,_NGA_208390.jpg|alt=Image of Victor Hugo|thumb|Victor Hugo in 1829, lithograph by Achille Devéria in the collection of the [[National Gallery of Art]], Washington D.C.|248x248px]]
[[File:Monsieur Madeleine par Gustave Brion.jpg|thumb|[[Jean Valjean]] (also known as Monsieur Madeleine in the book)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hugo |first=Victor |title=Les Misérables |year=1862}}</ref> is the principal character in Hugo's great novel, [[Les Misérables]].]]
Victor Hugo's first mature work of fiction was published in February 1829 by Charles Gosselin without the author's name and reflected the acute social conscience that would infuse his later work. {{lang|fr|Le Dernier jour d'un condamné}} (''[[The Last Day of a Condemned Man]]'') would have a profound influence on later writers such as [[Albert Camus]], [[Charles Dickens]], and [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]]. ''Claude Gueux,'' a documentary short story about a real-life murderer who had been executed in France, was published in 1834. Hugo himself later considered it to be a precursor to his great work on social injustice, {{lang|fr|[[Les Misérables]]}}.

Hugo became the figurehead of the Romantic literary movement with the plays ''Cromwell'' (1827) and ''Hernani'' (1830).<ref>{{cite web |last=State Library of Victoria |title=Victor Hugo: Les Misérables – From Page to Stage research guide |url=http://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/victorhugo |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714180659/http://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/victorhugo |archive-date=14 July 2014 }}</ref> ''Hernani'' announced the arrival of French romanticism: performed at the [[Comédie-Française]], it was greeted with several nights of rioting as romantics and traditionalists clashed over the play's deliberate disregard for neo-classical rules. Hugo's popularity as a playwright grew with subsequent plays, such as ''Marion Delorme'' (1831), ''[[Le roi s'amuse]]'' (1832), and ''Ruy Blas'' (1838).<ref>Brockett, Oscar G. ''History of the Theatre''. Eight Edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999, p. 339.</ref> Hugo's novel {{lang|fr|Notre-Dame de Paris}} (''[[The Hunchback of Notre-Dame]]'') was published in 1831 and quickly translated into other languages across Europe. One of the effects of the novel was to shame the City of Paris into restoring the much neglected [[Notre Dame de Paris|Cathedral of Notre Dame]], which was attracting thousands of tourists who had read the popular novel.

Hugo began planning a major novel about social misery and injustice as early as the 1830s, but a full 17 years were needed for {{lang|fr|Les Misérables}} to be realised and finally published in 1862. Hugo had previously used the departure of prisoners for the [[Bagne of Toulon]] in ''Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné''. He went to Toulon to visit the Bagne in 1839 and took extensive notes, though he did not start writing the book until 1845. On one of the pages of his notes about the prison, he wrote in large block letters a possible name for his hero: "JEAN TRÉJEAN". When the book was finally written, Tréjean became [[Jean Valjean]].<ref>''Le Bagne de Toulon (1748–1873)'', Académie du Var, Autres Temps Editions (2010), {{ISBN|978-2-84521-394-4}}</ref>

Hugo was acutely aware of the quality of the novel, as evidenced in a letter he wrote to his publisher, Albert Lacroix, on 23 March 1862: "My conviction is that this book is going to be one of the peaks, if not the crowning point of my work."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.alalettre.com/Hugo-miserables.htm|title=Les Misérables de Victor Hugo |work=alalettre.com|access-date=3 April 2017}}</ref> Publication of ''Les Misérables'' went to the highest bidder. The Belgian publishing house {{lang|fr|Lacroix|italic=no}} and {{lang|nl|Verboeckhoven|nocat=y}} undertook a marketing campaign unusual for the time, issuing press releases about the work a full six months before the launch. It also initially published only the first part of the novel ("[[Fantine]]"), which was launched simultaneously in major cities. Installments of the book sold out within hours and had an enormous impact on French society.
[[File:Ebcosette.jpg|thumb|left|Illustration by [[Émile Bayard]] from the original edition of {{lang|fr|[[Les Misérables]]}} (1862)|237x237px]]
[[File:Victor_Hugo-Hunchback.jpg|alt=|thumb|176x176px|right|Illustration by [[Luc-Olivier Merson]] for [[The Hunchback of Notre-Dame|Notre-Dame de Paris]] (1881)]]
The critical establishment was generally hostile to the novel; {{lang|fr|[[Hippolyte Taine|Taine]]|italic=no}} found it insincere, {{lang|fr|[[Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly|Barbey d'Aurevilly]]|italic=no}} complained of its vulgarity, {{lang|fr|[[Gustave Flaubert]]|italic=no}} found within it "neither truth nor greatness", the [[Goncourt brothers|{{lang|fr|Goncourt|nocat=y}} brothers]] lambasted its artificiality, and {{lang|fr|[[Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]]|italic=no}}—despite giving favourable reviews in newspapers—castigated it in private as "repulsive and inept". However, ''Les Misérables'' proved popular enough with the masses that the issues it highlighted were soon on the agenda of the [[National Assembly of France]]. Today, the novel remains his best-known work. It is popular worldwide and has been adapted for cinema, television, and stage shows.

An apocryphal tale<ref>Garson O'Toole, [http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/14/exclamation/ "Briefest Correspondence: Question Mark? Exclamation Mark!"] (14 June 2014).</ref> has circulated, describing the shortest correspondence in history as having been between Hugo and his publisher [[Hurst and Blackett]] in 1862. Hugo was on vacation when {{lang|fr|Les Misérables}} was published. He queried the reaction to the work by sending a single-character [[telegram]] to his publisher, asking {{mono|?}}. The publisher replied with a single {{mono|!}} to indicate its success.<ref>McWhirter, Norris (1981). ''Guinness Book of World Records: 1981 Edition''. Bantam Books, p. 216.</ref> Hugo turned away from social/political issues in his next novel, {{lang|fr|Les Travailleurs de la Mer}} (''[[Toilers of the Sea]]''), published in 1866. The book was well received, perhaps due to the previous success of {{lang|fr|Les Misérables}}. Dedicated to the channel island of [[Guernsey]], where Hugo spent 15 years of exile, the novel tells of a man who attempts to win the approval of his beloved's father by rescuing his ship, intentionally marooned by its captain who hopes to escape with a treasure of money it is transporting, through an exhausting battle of human engineering against the force of the sea and an almost mythical beast of the sea, a [[Giant squid in popular culture|giant squid]]. Superficially an adventure, one of Hugo's biographers calls it a "metaphor for the 19th century–technical progress, creative genius and hard work overcoming the immanent evil of the material world."<ref>{{cite book |last=Robb |first=Graham |title=Victor Hugo: A Biography |year=1997 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |page=414 |isbn=9780393318999 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kU9LloPylhQC&pg=PA414 }}</ref>

The word used in Guernsey to refer to squid ({{lang|fr|pieuvre}}, also sometimes applied to octopus) was to enter the French language as a result of its use in the book. Hugo returned to political and social issues in his next novel, {{lang|fr|L'Homme Qui Rit}} (''[[The Man Who Laughs]]''), which was published in 1869 and painted a critical picture of the aristocracy. The novel was not as successful as his previous efforts, and Hugo himself began to comment on the growing distance between himself and literary contemporaries such as {{lang|fr|[[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]]|italic=no}} and {{lang|fr|[[Émile Zola]]|italic=no}}, whose [[Literary realism|realist]] and [[naturalism (literature)|naturalist]] novels were now exceeding the popularity of his own work.

His last novel, {{lang|fr|Quatre-vingt-treize}} (''[[Ninety-Three]]''), published in 1874, dealt with a subject that Hugo had previously avoided: the [[Reign of Terror]] during the [[French Revolution]]. Though Hugo's popularity was on the decline at the time of its publication, many now consider ''Ninety-Three'' to be a work on par with Hugo's better-known novels.