Poems

Hugo called himself a poet first, and this collection proves why. While the world remembers him for Notre-Dame and Les Misérables, his verse was the forge where his genius burned hottest. This volume gathers eight thousand lines spanning his entire career, with more than half appearing in English for the first time. What emerges is a writer of startling range: tender love poems that ache with longing, savage satires aimed at the political establishment, meditations of almost unbearable stillness, and sprawling narrative poems that tell stories as vivid as any novel. The man who gave us Jean Valjean reveals himself here as equally capable of capturing the flutter of a heart in love or the corruption of power. His paintings and drawings accompany the text, showing yet another dimension of this restless, volcanic talent. This is Hugo unbound, speaking directly across the centuries.