A gypsy girl who fascinated a king (old Philip IV) and swayed a crown - such is Maritana, the street singer of old Spain. But of course she was only a gypsy dancer, and his Queen thought it wise to study the vivacious young person that she might learn from her what so charmed her royal spouse. The king s own spies reported that he himself was being spied upon. Meanwhile the gypsy dancing girl had fallen in love with Don Caesar de Bazan, a dissolute nobleman. After she had danced in his gardens, she was completely captivated by this royal vagabond, and was willing to make any sacrifices that...
A gypsy girl who fascinated a king (old Philip IV) and swayed a crown - such is Maritana, the street singer of old Spain. But of course she was only a...
VICTOR HUGO'S long and chequered life (1802-85) was filled with experiences of the most diverse character - literature and politics, the court and the street, parliament and the theatre, labour, struggles, disappointments, exile and triumphs. --- In 1855 he began a 15-year-long exile on the island of Guernsey, where he completed, among others, his longest and most famous work, Les Miserables (1862), and also The Man Who Laughs (L'Homme qui rit; 1869), also known as "By Order of the King," a historic novel with fictional characters, set in England 1688-1705. --- .it will be seen that, here...
VICTOR HUGO'S long and chequered life (1802-85) was filled with experiences of the most diverse character - literature and politics, the court and the...
Though the great French novelist, poet and dramatist Victor Hugo's work has gone in and out of favor since his death in 1885, few have ever forgotten his masterpiece, Les Miserables nor that he is the author to have created the "Hunchback" of Notre Dame. The collected works of Victor Hugo encompass eighteen 1,500 page manuscripts -- almost more than any one reader could possibly encompass. Victor Hugo's life spanned the 19th century in France, from Napoleon Bonaparte to the Republics to revolution and coup 'd etat. When Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (later to become Napoleon III) was elected...
Though the great French novelist, poet and dramatist Victor Hugo's work has gone in and out of favor since his death in 1885, few have ever forgott...
Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs (first published under the French title L'Homme qui Rit in April 1869) is a sad and sordid tale -- not the sort of tale of the moment Hugo was known for. Is starts on the night of January 29, 1690, a ten-year-old boy abandoned -- the stern men who've kept him since infancy have wearied of him. The boy wanders, barefoot and starving, through a snowstorm to reach a gibbet bearing the corpse of a hanged criminal. Beneath the gibbet is a ragged woman, frozen to death. The boy is about to move onward when he hears a sound within the woman's garments: He...
Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs (first published under the French title L'Homme qui Rit in April 1869) is a sad and sordid tale -- not the sort of...
Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs (first published under the French title L'Homme qui Rit in April 1869) is a sad and sordid tale -- not the sort of tale of the moment Hugo was known for. It starts on the night of January 29, 1690, a ten-year-old boy abandoned -- the stern men who've kept him since infancy have wearied of him. The boy wanders, barefoot and starving, through a snowstorm to reach a gibbet bearing the corpse of a hanged criminal. Beneath the gibbet is a ragged woman, frozen to death. The boy is about to move onward when he hears a sound within the woman's garments: He...
Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs (first published under the French title L'Homme qui Rit in April 1869) is a sad and sordid tale -- not the sort of...
"Work can be epic. I want to glorify work, will, devotion, all that makes man great." So wrote Hugo of Toilers of the Sea, his novel about the rescue of a shipwrecked engine by a lonely visionary named Gilliatt. Armed with nothing but primitive tools and a tremendous inventiveness, Gilliatt engages in sublime combat with tempests, starvation and the madness of solitude. - From the Introduction and Afterword by Shoshana Milgram Knapp
"Work can be epic. I want to glorify work, will, devotion, all that makes man great." So wrote Hugo of Toilers of the Sea, his novel about the resc...
You may read any number of more "realistic" accounts of the French Revolution, but Hugo's is the one you will remember. He is not a reporter of the momentary, but an artist who projects the essential and fundamental. He is not a statistician of gutter trivia, but a Romanticist who presents life "as it might be and ought to be." He is the worshipper and the superlative portrayer of man's greatness.
If you are struggling to hold your vision of man above the gray ashes of our century, Hugo is the fuel you need.
One cannot preserve that vision or achieve it without some knowledge...
You may read any number of more "realistic" accounts of the French Revolution, but Hugo's is the one you will remember. He is not a reporter of the...
A rare 1826 French play by master fantasist Charles Nodier revisits the legend of Frankenstein, recasting the legendary scientist as a sorcerer and his Monster as a mute killer from Hell. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame was adapted and rewritten by Victor Hugo himself into a stage play that throws new light on the classic tragedy. These two never-before-translated masterpieces are supplemented by an all-new story by translator Frank J. Morlock (Lord Ruthven), in which the Frankenstein Monster travels back in time to save Quasimodo, but does not count on the intervention of - Dracula! Three tales...
A rare 1826 French play by master fantasist Charles Nodier revisits the legend of Frankenstein, recasting the legendary scientist as a sorcerer and hi...
