The History of a Crime

📖 Hugo (1802-85) was a French poet, novelist and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of France's greatest writers and is best remembered for The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Miserables (1862). His life spanned the dramatic changes in 19th century France from Napoleon Bonaparte to the Republics, to revolution and coup d'etat. When Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (later Napoleon III) became President of France in 1849, Hugo was originally elected a deputy to the new regime but the new President's ambitions soon led to Hugo's firm opposition and he left France for a nineteen-year period of exile during which he wrote Histoire d'un Crime which tells the story of Napoleon III's accession to power. The book was first published in two parts in 1877 and 1878 following Hugo's eventual return to France after two decades in exile.