Showing results by author "Victor Hugo" in All Categories

In the Gothic towers of the cathedral of Notre-Dame - which has been subjected to decades of degradation and neglect - lives its bell ringer, Quasimodo. Persecuted as wicked and pilloried for his broken appearance, he’s shown kindness only by the alluring Esmeralda, an outsider herself, who fills Quasimodo’s heart with a hope and devotion beyond reason. When she falls victim to the lies of the vengeful and lustful Archdeacon Claude Frollo, only Quasimodo can save her from the gallows. In sanctuary, looming high above Paris, their fates entwine.

Les Miserables is set in the Parisian underworld. The protagonist, Jean Valjean, is sentenced to prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. After his release, Valjean plans to rob monseigneur Myriel, a saint-like bishop, but cancels his plan. However, he forfeits his parole by committing a minor crime, and for this crime Valjean is haunted by the police inspector Javert. Valjean eventually reforms and becomes a successful businessman, benefactor, and mayor of a northern town.

As one of the greatest novels of all time, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables takes the listeneron a journey into the turbulent Parisian underworld. With breathtaking realism, Hugo recreates the dark world of the 1832 uprising and the sad but meaningful struggle between good and evil. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo introduces one of the most beloved fictional characters of classic literature, Jean Valjean, who is best known for his imprisonment for the minor offense of stealing a loaf of bread.

In the grotesque bell-ringer Quasimodo, Victor Hugo created one of the most vivid characters in classic fiction. Quasimodo's doomed love for the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda is an example of the traditional love theme of beauty and the beast. Yet, set against the massive background of Notre Dame de Paris and interwoven with the sacred and secular life of medieval France, it takes on a larger perspective.

The Man Who Laughs (“L’Homme qui Rit”) was called by its author “A Romance of English History,” and was written during the period Hugo spent in exile in Guernsey. Like The Toilers of the Sea, its immediate predecessor, the main theme of the story is human heroism, confronted with the superhuman tyranny of blind chance. As a passionate cry on behalf of the tortured and deformed, and the despised and oppressed of the world, The Man Who Laughs is irresistible.

Murder comes in two familiar forms. Whether as a crime of passion with high emotions or a cold dispassionate plot to take life in order to gain in some way, the act strikes us all as somehow inhuman. Beneath us as civilised beings. But however we cloak our animal instincts the need to remove a human being and gain relief from abuse or gain from money, the term is just the same – MURDER. Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie, W W Jacobs and many others bring their literary heft to bear in as calculating a way as any killer could.

Joss Ackland, Roger Allam, and Leslie Phillips star in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel. When poverty drives Jean Valjean to steal a loaf of bread from a baker’s window, it is an action that will haunt him for the rest of his life. A citizen of postrevolutionary France, he is sentenced to nineteen years’ hard labour.

Si recibieras una llamada inesperada para hacer una película sobre tu vida, ¿sería una película cautivadora, llena de riesgo, batalla y victoria? ¿O sería una de esas películas en las que las personas salen del cine antes de que acabe? Todos hemos escuchado sobre grandes historias de héroes famosos, hombres y mujeres que han dejado huella y han marcado la diferencia. Pero... ¿qué hay de tu vida? ¿Puedes hacer de ella una de esas grandes historias?

Set amid the riot, intrigue, and pageantry of medieval Paris, Victor Hugo's masterful tale of heroism and adventure has been a perennial favorite since its first publication in 1831. It is the story of Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of the Notre Dame Cathedral, who falls in love with the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda. When Esmeralda is condemned as a witch by Claude Frollo, the tormented archdeacon who lusts after her, Quasimodo attempts to save her; but his intentions are misunderstood.

Audiolibro dramatizado en español basado en la historia original de Víctor Hugo. Catalogada como la primera novela social de su época, Los Miserables, es una de obras literarias las más famosas de todos los tiempos. Es la historia de Jean Valjean, un convicto que estuvo injustamente encarcelado por 19 años por haberse robado una rebanada de pan. Al ser liberado de su injusta condena, Valjean trata de escapar de su pasado, lleno de maldad y depravación, para vivir una vida digna y honesta.

It is 1793 in France, the year of the guillotine. Already, Louis XVI has been sentenced to the scaffold, and Terror reigns. The architects of the Revolution (Marat, Danton, and Robespierre) have set up the Convention, an embryo parliament, designed to stem social chaos. But ideals topple in the face of political necessity, alliances founder, and intrigue is a way of life.

Les Misérables emphasizes the three major predicaments of the 19th century, each symbolized by a major character: Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness.

Victor Hugo wrote this wonderful story while living in exile on the island of Guernsey, which is where the adventure unfolds. Set in the early 1800s, The Toilers of the Sea tells off a young reclusive fisherman who falls dangerously in love with a beautiful island girl. Her uncle, himself an intrepid seafarer, is the owner of a paddle-steamer, which plies its trade to and from St. Malo on the coast of Brittany.

A mad priest, a vagabond playwright, a social-climbing soldier, and a deformed bell-ringer—all are captivated by a gypsy girl's beauty and charm. Two of them will betray her, but the others will remain loyal, even in the shadow of the gallows. These outlaws find sanctuary within the walls of medieval Paris' greatest monument, the grand Cathedral of Notre Dame.

The classic tale of Les Miserables abridged for a ten year old child, yet still enjoyable for an adult of any age.

Life has the capacity of great moments and attainment, of lives well lived, fulfilling for ourselves and for those we touch. But for others life is arduous. There is no spark to ignite the curiosity, to explore and achieve a stability and a growth to their lives. Indeed their lives, in their own eyes, become almost meaningless, their sense of themselves subsumed under a myriad of problems, whether real or imagined. Seismic events in a life might crush them; the loss of a loved one for instance. Coping is difficult, support hard to find and isolation abounds.

The greatest poems from the greatest masters of French literature have been put together in a brilliant English adaptation in the form of an audiobook. Dive deep into Victor Hugo's superb style, with excerpts from his "Contemplations" or "Autumn Leaves"; enjoy the ephemeral poetry of Verlaine and the darkness of Charles Baudelaire's "Flowers of Evil", narrated with precision and subtlety by Katie Haigh and Paul Edwards.

Ne "I Miserabili" Victor Hugo narra con assoluta sensibilità ed estrema modernità la solitudine dell'uomo, il contrasto tra ceti sociali, ma anche la redenzione attraverso la rivolta e l'amore. Il romanzo, dal ritmo incalzante, magistrale e irripetibile per l'autenticità delle emozioni e per la complessità della trama narrativa, viene qui tradotto ad alta voce da un unico narratore, Moro Silo, che con la sua più che trentennale esperienza di lettore, riesce a cogliere l'enorme quantità di significati presenti nel libro nel massimo rispetto dello stile unico e originale dell'autore, del suo contesto storico-culturale e filologico.

Les Misérables has long been recognized as one of the finest novels of all time, a brilliant fusion of unforgettable characters and universal themes.

Its hero is Jean Valjean, the noble peasant imprisoned. A sweeping story of love and honor in the depths of the Parisian underworld, immerses us in an epic struggle between good and evil, and carries us onto the barricades during the uprising of 1832 with a realism that is unsurpassed in modern literature.

Les Contemplations de Victor Hugo est un recueil de poésies écrites entre 1834 et 1855. Regroupés en deux tomes, ces poèmes se divisent entre Autrefois et Aujourd'hui, une période heureuse où l'auteur contemplait la richesse de l'amour et de la nature, et des jours plus sombres frappés par le deuil de sa fille Léopoldine. Michaël Lonsdale et Denis Podalydès lisent en alternance les six livres que composent Les Contemplations, l'un des écrits les plus connus de la langue française.