Selected Poems: Dual-Language Edition - Paperback

by Victor Hugo (Author), Brooks Haxton (Translator), Brooks Haxton (Introduction by)

For most of his life, Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was the most famous writer in the world. His legacy includes the nineteenth century's most celebrated works of drama, fiction, memoir, and criticism. But in his day Hugo was know foremost as a poet-indeed the greatest French poet of the age. He wrote with passion about history, erotic experience, familial love, philosophy, nature, social justice, art, and mysticism.

In this new bicentennial edition, acclaimed poet and translator Brooks Haxton offers an exquisite selection of Hugo's finest work: love poems, historical tableaux, elegy, and idyll, including his incomparable "Boaz Asleep," which Marcel Proust praised as the most beautiful poem of the nineteenth century.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author Biography

Victor Hugo (1802-85) was a forceful and prolific writer. He became a committed social democrat and during the Second Empire of Napoleon III was exiled from France, living in the Channel Islands. His body is now buried in the Pantheon.

Brooks Haxton's poetry translations include Dances for Flute and Thunder: Poems from the Ancient Greek, which was nominated for a PEN translation award, and Victor Hugo's Selected Poems for Penguin Classics.