The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Originally published in 1831 as Notre-Dame de Paris, The Hunchback of Notre Dame relates the story of Quasimodo, his love for the Gypsy girl Esmerelda, and the measures he takes when she is threatened by the authority figure of Claude Frollo. Hugo's work has spawned many interpretations on film, television and in the theatre, and like Les Miserables, it might be considered less famous as a book than it is on the wide screen. The novel provides an expression of Hugo's Romantic outlook that is early enough in his career not to be tainted by the political landscape but which instead makes use of established systems of authority in the Church and the Army. Clearly this is made necessary by setting the story at the end of the fifteenth century, but in doing so it shows Hugo in his earlier incarnation as the Romantic rather than the Politician.