A Propos Hugo: Victor-Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 - 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner, and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France. In France, Hugo's literary reputation rests on his poetic and dramatic output. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La L gende des si cles stand particularly high in critical esteem, and Hugo is sometimes identified as the greatest French poet. In the English-speaking world his best-known works are often the novels Les Mis rables and Notre-Dame de Paris (sometimes translated into English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). Though extremely conservative in his youth, Hugo moved to the political left as the decades passed; he became