The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

HUGO, Victor.

Item Number: 127012

London: Richard Bentley, 1833.

First edition in English edition, first single-volume edition, and first edition to use the word “hunchback” in the title of one of Hugo’s most popular stories. Octavo, bound in three quarter calf over marbled boards with gilt titles and ruling to the spine, engraved frontispiece and title page. Translated with A Sketch of the Life and Writings of the Author by Frederic Shoberl. With “Standard Novels” title page and leaf of reviews at rear. Mahaffey, 165. In very good condition. Rare.

“The Hunchback of Notre Dame was a revelation of what an historical novel could be” (Reid, 296). First published in 1831 as Notre-Dame de Paris, Hugo’s book is “a stunning novelistic representation of late-medieval Paris and its central point… [While it] firmly rejects the idealization of the Middle Ages frequent among Romantic apologists for the ancien régime… Hugo’s novel was a hugely influential revelation of the descriptive intensity of Romantic prose” (Hollier, 662). The book has seen numerous screen adaptations, including director William Dieterle’s 1939 version starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara (the most expensive RKO production to that date) and the 1996 animated feature from Disney Studios.