Victor Hugo: A Biography Part 1 Of 2

by Graham Robb

Victor Hugo was the most important writer of the nineteenth century in France: leader of the Romantic movement; revolutionary playwright; poet; epic novelist; author of the last universally accessible masterpieces in the European tradition, among them Les Mis

Audio Cassette

Published December 21, 1998

About the author

Graham Macdonald Robb FRSL (born June 2, 1958) is a British author.

Robb was born in Manchester and educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester and Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied Modern Languages. He earned a PhD in French literature at Vanderbilt University.

He won the 1997 Whitbread Book Award for best biography (Victor Hugo) and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Rimbaud in 2001. In 2007, he won the Duff Cooper Prize for The Discovery of France.

On April 28, 2008 he was awarded the £10,000 Ondaatje Prize by the Royal Society of Literature in London for The Discovery of France.

Reviews

[Tom Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

One can spend a decade in this voluminous, wondrous work. But, as a fan of "Les Miserables" I read the beginning then couldn't contain myself: I jumped into the writing of the novel. This new bio reveals much of Hugo's childhood (always moving around, influenced by his literate mother.) The elements of "Les Mis" can be traced back to this childhood, and the surroundings of his youth. This is the kind of bio which, if one does not have that "decade", allows the reader to pick and choose topics. It also contains an extensive Bibliography and Suggested Reading section.