1. Notre-Dame de Paris
By Victor Hugo
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co, New York, 1888
Curated by Hayley Battaglia
Photographs by Hayley Battaglia

2. Victor Hugo
Notre-Dame de Paris
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co, New York, 1888
The life of Notre Dame de Paris began in 1828, when Victor Hugo signed a contract
with his publisher, Gosselin, stipulating that he would write a novel similar to the
widely read historical fiction of Walter Scott. Progress on the work was interrupted
repeatedly, especially by the events of the July Revolution in Paris in 1830 which
led to the abdication of Charles X
Ascension of Louis-Philippe to the French throne and establishment of the
constitutional July Monarchy. These events bled into Hugo’s work, inspiring the
themes of distrust in authority that pervade the novel and Notre-Dame de Paris was
finally published on February 13, 1831.
Notre-Dame de Paris was not so much the historical novel requested by Gosselin
(historical in the sense of a narrative woven around a specific historical event or
figure), but rather a Gothic drama festooned with historical details such as dress,
custom, and architecture.

3. As it turns out what we now would call “historic preservation” is at the heart of
Notre-Dame de Paris, and architecture is one of Hugo’s central concerns. In his
note in the 1832 edition Hugo writes, “But in any case, whatever the future of
architecture may be, however our young architects may one day resolve the
question of their art, while we wait for new monuments, let us preserve the old
ones. Let us inspire the nation, if possible, with a love of our national
architecture… .” Hugo views Notre Dame (and Paris’s historic architecture in
general) as something precious, irreplaceable, and in danger of being lost. In
some English translations of the novel, the title is altered to “The Hunchback of
Notre Dame,” mistakenly presenting the hunchbacked Quasimodo as the
protagonist of the tale when in actuality, it is the great cathedral herself who
carries the focus of the story and is brought alive in its telling.
The great international success of Hugo’s novel Notre Dame de Paris sparked a
renewed interest in the cathedral and forever linked his name to it Not only did the
novel reignite an interest in Notre Dame, but in pre-Renaissance architecture in
general, shedding light on the need to preserve these historic buildings.

4. This edition is translated by Isabel F. Hapgood and includes illustrations by Luc-
Olivier Merson, Gustave Brion, and Charles Edouard de Beaumont as well as a
frontispiece by Herman Winthrop Pierce and photograph of the author taken by
renowned portrait photographer, Felix Nadar. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. published
Hapgood’s translation in 1888. Crowell originally had a bookbinding business,
which he had started in Boston around 1860. Sixteen years later, he began a
second venture, a publishing business in New York, which he merged with his
bookbinding business in 1900. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. also published Hugo’s
poetry anthologies, Les Miserables, and Ninety-Three, among other works.
Student Curator: Hayley Battaglia

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