Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo was a French writer born in Besançon on 26 February 1802 and died in 1885, in Paris. He was a novelist, poet and dramatist, and also a politician who sat in the legislature and spoke against the death penalty and for the poor. He became the leading figure of French Romanticism, a movement that valued strong feeling, imagination and freedom from classical rules. His opposition to Napoleon III led to long years of exile, mostly in the Channel Islands, where he wrote some of his greatest work. Readers around the world know him best for his huge, humane novels, which blend history, adventure and social conscience; in France he is also celebrated for his poetry. His funeral drew an enormous crowd, and he remains a national hero.