Victor Hugo, the shining light of French Romanticism, was an indefatigable campaigner against the death penalty. This unique anthology of his controversial writings on crime and punishment reveals the author's generosity of spirit and his pity for the condemned. However, as always in Hugo, a degree of endearing self-glorification is never absent. The Last Day of a Condemned Man, while not seeking to minimalize its protagonist's responsibility for the murder he has committed, reminds the reader of the mental anguish endured by a man condemned to a cell. Claude Gueux is a documentary account of the martyrdom of a prisoner driven to crime by poverty, and to murder by the casual brutality of a head warder. Also included are Hugo's moving diary entries recording his visits to the prisons of La Roquette and the Conciergerie.
- ISBN10 0192837532
- ISBN13 9780192837530
- Publish Date January 1999 (first published 1 September 1992)
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Out of Print 19 July 2008
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Oxford Paperbacks
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 228
- Language English