I had to share this cover for 'Great French novels'. It's a work of art, especially my man Vicky

omg thank you @ssimsass, you are so right I NEEDED to see this

Hugo being in the Gavroche-inspiration slot is pretty awesome but I can't get over Dumas just

flaunting it

looking through this mostly delightful set of accounts about Hugo and his barbers on Guernsey, which has interesting info like this:

Victor Hugo always took a keen interest in Mr Le Gallez and his family and unfailingly on holidays such as Christmas and Easter he would say to the barber, ‘Well, how many children have you now?’ and he would thereupon produce a 5-franc piece for each of the children. In contrast to this generosity, he never gave so much as a sou extra for his shave, which was a penny in those days, or for his haircut, which was 2d.

(the barber in question ultimately had fourteen kids!)

but then also there's this:

The poet after a shave would ask for a large basin of water into which he would plunge his head completely, and then he would blow noisily into the water. One day, a customer coming into the shop, saw the ritual in progress, and not knowing who was in the chair, cried out: ’Hey, what do you think you‘re doing, drowning yourself?’

absolutely lethal levels of jokes misfiring oh no

picture by Daumier; a huckster is telling the crowd to “ Here you see the great celebrities of literary, musical, and artistic France; they are thirty-six feet tall measured below sea level ” , the celebrities in question are, left to right, someone wearing the Journal des Debats like a cape, with a Phrygian cap; a man I can’t idenity; Victor Hugo, on a throne surrounded by books ;a musician wrapped up in giant sheet music; and a guy with a Napoleon-style hat holding a signboard advertising “Jeanne Grey”, “Les enfants d’Edouard”, and “Cromwell”.  The full French text under the picture is: 

Vous voyez ici les grandes celebrites de la France litteraire, musicale et artistique, ils ont tous 36 pieds au dessous du nivou (?) de la mer”

from the Met museum!

An Ongoing Effort to Index This Blog

You’re probably here for reference material! Here’s a tag list to hopefully make finding that easier!

Before I get into the tag lists, a note on my Editorial Policy, such as it is:  I truly appreciate corrections, warnings about bloggers/writers operating in bad faith, etc! But if you’re contacting me with actionable info please come off anon or leave me some other way to get hold of you, so I can follow up if I need more info! I don’t post or reblog incorrect or hateful material on purpose, which means if I missed something I probably need more information!  I’m happy to keep a convo private if asked, I just need to be able to verify my sources. 

That out of the way! The tags!

(I had all these linked before accidentally deleting this post once; it's going to be a While before I can repair those links. If you want to find any of these , just go to pilferingapples.tumblr.com/tagged/name of tag and it should work!) Les Miserables Specific: -BrickClub: former readthroughs - LM X.X.X (as in: LM 1.2.3): chapter specific tags -Fandom 101: stuff that’s hopefully useful for people just starting to look around ; if there’s something not here you think would be useful, let me know! -Fashion,or:  Canon Era Fashion : what it says on the tin - Les Misereference: a general tag of all kinds of things , if you just wanna binge canon-era reference - (Character) relevant: references and commentary specifically relevant to one character.  Note that this includes “barricade relevant”, “Amis relevant” as a group, and, yes, “sewer relevant” - (character) talk: discussion of a character/concept , like “ Grantaire Talk”  or “sewer talk”  -what’s the meta for:  a general catchall tag for analysis discussion; mostly older stuff- Paris in Canon Era:  historical info for the True Main Character ; incl. sewers, schools, etc  - maps : They Are Maps - FRev :  goofy fannish stuff and silliness about the French Revolution - FRENCH REVOLUTION: actual historical/ analytical posts about the French Revolution (NOT when Les Mis is set, but hugely influential!)  -Women in the Revolution: what it says! historical /analyses stuff about women in various revolutions and uprisings, though mostly the 1830s and the Frev.  Romanticism Specific:  - Actual Romantics : stories and histories on members of the French Romantic movement -Four People and a Shoelace: specifically about the Petit Cenacle/Jeunes France crew -Hugolania: trivia and random Hugo homages/commentary/fandom stuff. Because Hugo always  had a fandom. more, doubtless, as I think of them! Adaptations: - Les Mis Stage : things about /from the stage musical  -Les Mis Dallas, Dallas Les Mis :  the 2014 Dallas Theater Center modernized production -Les Mis 2012 : things about/from the 2012 musical movie  -Shoujo Cosette: the 52-episode anime; characters from this sometimes just get tagged SC(character)  -Les Mis Arai:  the multivolume manga - Other Adaptations : what it says on the tin , including other musical adaptations, movies, and tv shows  Fanwork Specific -(Character) art:  exactly what you’d expect  - Canon era fic :..again… - Modern AU : rarely needed, but sometimes! -Fic Rec, Ficrec-what it says  Character/ Group/ Ship/Pairing tags, when not just a character’s name : - The Pontmercy Friend: Marius  - All of Them : the Amis as a group -Most of Them: ALMOST all the Amis as a group -Poetry Smash: Bahorel and Prouvaire  -Justice and His Tutor: Enjolras and Feuilly  - Bini!, Bini:  Joly and Bossuet  - OMST3K: J/B/M, for reasons - Power Trio: Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac  - Party Trio: Joly, Legle , and Grantaire -To Watch Faith Soar: Enjolras and Grantaire Ships Ahoy:  any content focused on romance  (these are NEVER EVER Ship Tags): - Owl and Wren : Valjean and Cosette - Para Bellum: Bahorel and Gavroche

excerpt from an 1862 review of Fantine, on its publication, from a reviewer with the striking name of  Edwin Percy Whipple (bolding mine)

From the bare abstract, the story does not seem to promise much pleasure to novel-readers, yet it is all alive with the fiery genius of Victor Hugo, and the whole representation is so intense and vivid that it is impossible to escape from the fascination it exerts over the mind. Few who take the book up will leave it until they have read it through. It is morbid to a degree that no eminent English author, not even Lord Byron, ever approached; but its morbid elements are so combined with sentiments abstractly Christian that it is calculated to wield a more pernicious influence than Byron ever exerted. Its tendency is to weaken that abhorrence of crime which is the great shield of most of the virtue which society possesses, and it does this by attempting to prove that society itself is responsible for crimes it cannot prevent, but can only punish. To legislators, to Magdalen societies, to prison-reformers, it may suggest many useful hints; but, considered as a passionate romance, appealing to the sympathies of the ordinary readers of novels, it will do infinitely more harm than good. The bigotries of virtue are better than the charities of vice. On the whole, therefore, we think that Victor Hugo, when he stood out twenty-five years for his price, did a service to the human race. The great value of his new gospel consisted in its not being published. We wish that another quarter of a century had elapsed before it found a bookseller capable of venturing on so reckless a speculation.

Three ;ove letters from teenaged Victor Hugo to Adele Foucher! 

“ Effet de Phèdre sur les bêtes ; Grise, la Mère de Mouche (écoutant Phèdre) “ 

VERY important Hugo  Research today, courtesy @shellcollector and @citoyenneangele--  a photo of one of Hugo’s cats, taken by Auguste Vacquerie, apparently around 1852!

SHOW ME THE BUFF HUGO STATUE!!!!!!!

Very Demanding for an Anon, hey?XD  But of course you are overcome with the same horrible Need to Know that drives people onto the rocks of the sirens 

Remember you not only asked for but DEMANDED it, Rodin’s monument to Hugo:

Nude to listen to the muse! as one does! 

I was just poking around at search terms , as one does, and found  this site of (questionably translated)  Victor Hugo quotes along with...a Picture:

Victor Hugo by Henry Van Dyke

omg there’s also this, from Henry Van Dyke in 1902 :

Heart of France for a hundred years, Passionate, sensitive, proud, and strong, Quick to throb with her hopes and fears, Fierce to flame with her sense of wrong! You, who hailed with a morning song Dream-light gilding a throne of old: You, who turned when the dream grew cold, Singing still, to the light that shone Pure from Liberty's ancient throne, Over the human throng! You, who dared in the dark eclipse,-- When the pygmy heir of a giant name Dimmed the face of the land with shame,-- Speak the truth with indignant lips, Call him little whom men called great, Scoff at him, scorn him, deny him, Point to the blood on his robe of state, Fling back his bribes and defy him!

..it goes on like this for three more verses 

You, who fronted the waves of fate As you faced the sea from your island home, Exiled, yet with a soul elate, Sending songs o'er the rolling foam, Bidding the heart of man to wait For the day when all should see Floods of wrath from the frowning skies Fall on an Empire founded in lies, And France again be free! You, who came in the Terrible Year Swiftly back to your broken land, Now to your heart a thousand times more dear,-- Prayed for her, sung to her, fought for her, Patiently, fervently wrought for her, Till once again, After the storm of fear and pain, High in the heavens the star of France stood clear!

You, who knew that a man must take Good and ill with a steadfast soul, Holding fast, while the billows roll Over his head, to the things that make Life worth living for great and small,-- Honour and pity and truth, The heart and the hope of youth, And the good God over all! You, to whom work was rest, Dauntless Toiler of the Sea, Following ever the joyful quest Of beauty on the shores of old Romance, Bard of the poor of France, And warrior-priest of world-wide charity!

You who loved little children best Of all the poets that ever sung, Great heart, golden heart, Old, and yet ever young, Minstrel of liberty, Lover of all free, winged things, Now at last you are free,-- Your soul has its wings! Heart of France for a hundred years, Floating far in the light that never fails you, Over the turmoil of mortal hopes and fears Victor, forever victor, the whole world hails you!

ever go looking for Victor Hugo images? because- 

(this is Napoleon, Pasteur, and Victor Hugo. Presented by Wikimedia without explanation or context.) 

this on the other hand I was kind of hoping to find- the Medallion portrait of Hugo from 1828, by David d’Angers

Hugo’s House Before Hauteville

it may be as well to say a  few words about the poet's residence in the Place Royale, which he occupied from the autumn of 1832 till nearly the time when the Coup d'ftat drove him from Paris.' The house, we are told, I don't know how truly, had long, long years before been occupied by Marion de Lorme. It has been several times described. I quote M. Barbou's description, rather than M. de Banville's, because, though less poetical, it is perhaps more precise.

 " The suite of apartments," he says, "was on the second floor, and approached by a wide and handsome staircase. A door opened into the dining-room, which was adorned with some fine tapestry, representing scenes in the ' Romaunt of the Rose.' . . . The study was a room full of quaint pieces of furniture, and overlooking an inner courtyard. The ceiling was decorated with a painting by Auguste de Chitillon, called Le Moine Rouge, 'the red monk,' a strange production, . . . its subject being a priest robed in red, lying at full length, and reading a Bible held up by a nude female figure. . ... The salon might almost be described as a picture gallery, so numerous were the artists . . . who had sought the honour of being allowed to contribute to its decoration. At one end was a high mantelpiece, fashioned according to the poet's taste, covered with drapery, and supporting some fine china vases. On the left was a sort of dais . . . on which it has been alleged ,that Victor Hugo, in his vanity, used to sit on a throne, . . . beneath a canopy, and extend his hand to be kissed by his admirers, who would mount the steps upon their knees. . . . Some arm-chairs of the time of Louis XV., made of gilt wood, and covered with tapestry, completed the furniture of the reception room. . .. Opposite the dais were three large windows reaching to the ground, and opening on to a balcony that ran the whole length of the salon, and overlooked the Square."

-Great Writers, Prof. Eric S Robertson 

Notes!

- the neighbors were Theo Gautier’s family, which is why the neighbors weren’t complaining about the decor or the streams of artists and poets laying all about the place:P

- Romantics and their group murals! I love how prevalent this seems to have been?

- the throne is almost certainly a joke/figure of speech; Robertson says as much himself, and I’ve never seen it referenced in any serious  literal way , rather than in the way people call others “kingmakers”. 

Unprepared to accept the sociologically-oriented roman a these, Poe was equally opposed to the bombast of that “absurd antithesis-hunter, Victor Hugo.” A thinking person had no choice “but to laugh outright at such phrases as the ’sympathetic swan-like cries ’ and the ’singular lyric precocity of the crystal soul ’ — of such an ass as the author of Bug-Jargal” (”Characters of France,” X, 136-137)

... Elsewhere he repeated his ridicule by suggesting that one of Hugo’s ancestors had been injected with “the blood of an ass” (”Marginalia,” XVI, 91). Though exasperated with his inflated style, Poe did not lose sight of Hugo’s merits. Notre-Dame de Paris afforded “a fine example of the force which can be gained by concentration, or unity of place” (Review of “Barnaby Rudge,” XI, 59). In “The Masque of the Red Death” the festivities preceding the gruesome climax had “much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm — much of what has been seen in ‘Hernani ’” (IV, 254). 

Significantly Poe is struck by those aspects directly related to stage setting. He had apparently attended a performance of Hernani and in his role as drama critic must have gone frequently to the theater to see other French Romantic plays then in vogue. One result of his theater-going may be the masquerade scene in “The Masque of the Red Death,” which parallels the final act of Hernani. In both cases the guests question each other about the identity of a sepulchral, masked figure. The mysterious intruder in each instance brings death to the host. Ruy Gomez forces Hernani to commit suicide and Prince Prospero is stricken with the plague. (source)

" Victor Hugo is a hack. An ass. I need to watch all his plays ten times in a row for Reasons.” 

And Then There’s Swinburne and (one of) his odes to Vic

Thou art chief of us, and lord; Thy song is as a sword Keen-edged and scented in the blade from flowers; Thou art lord and king; but we Lift younger eyes, and see Less of high hope, less light on wandering hours; Hours that have borne men down so long, Seen the right fail, and watched uplift the wrong.

But thine imperial soul, As years and ruins roll To the same end, and all things and all dreams With the same wreck and roar Drift on the dim same shore, Still in the bitter foam and brackish streams Tracks the fresh water-spring to be And sudden sweeter fountains in the sea.

..this goes on for like 20 verses I am not  copying it all over, go read the rest here

One of the Saints

okay I absolutely did not expect Ambrose Bierce to have ever written a poem anything to do with Victor Hugo, but here we are, with an excerpt from One Of the Saints: 

When told that Madame Ferrier had taught Hernani in school, his fist he brought Like a trip-hammer down on his bulbous knee, And he roared: 'Her Nanny? By gum, we'll see If the public's time she dares devote To the educatin' of any dam goat!' 'You do not entirely comprehend- Hernani's a play,' said his learned friend, 'By Victor Hugo-immoral and bad. What's worse, it's French!' 'Well, well, my lad,' Said Smith, 'if he cuts a swath so wide I'll have him took re'glar up and tried!' And he smiled so sweetly the other chap Thought that himself was a Finn or Lapp Caught in a storm of his native snows, With a purple ear and an azure nose. The Smith continued: 'I never pursue Immoral readin'.' And that is true: He's a saint of remarkably high degree, With a mind as chaste as a mind can be; But read!-the devil a word can he!