The arch-Romantic Victor Hugo (1802-85) and the Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80) are widely perceived to have little in common beyond their canonical status. However, responding to Sartres often overlooked fascination with Hugo, Bradley Stephens cuts through generic divisions to argue that significant parallels between the two writers have been neglected. Stephens argues that both Hugo and Sartre engage with human being in distinctly non-ontological terms, thereby anticipating postmodernist approaches to human experience. From different origins but towards similar...