Victor Hugo and Guernsey: the Catholic Church
22nd May 2017
Victor Hugo was not a Christian in the strict sense. He was a deist, profoundly religious in his way. This is part of The Victor Hugo and Guernsey project.
19th century
Les Miserables de Guernesey: Criminals
22nd May 2017
Throughout his life Hugo took an interest in crime and punishment, not least in Guernsey when he was writing Les Misérables. This is part of The Victor Hugo and Guernsey project.
Les Miserables de Guernesey: Servants
21st April 2017
In the early 1860s Hugo completed and revised his novel Les Misérables, a work that he had started in the 1840s. As he wrote about Cosette, Eponine, Fantine, Gavroche, Javert… he could not help but observe the poor, the suffering, and the wretched all around him in Guernsey. He had an active compassion and tried to help. Part of the Victor Hugo and Guernsey project.
Victor Hugo's Christmas fete, 1865
2nd December 2016
Two accounts of Victor Hugo's Christmas party for the poor children, from 1865, one from The Star, edited by John Talbot, and the other by E L Samuel, from the Daily Post. The illustration is an engraving (with suspiciously well-dressed children!) from Alfred Barbou's biography of Hugo, here in English translation, Victor Hugo and his time, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1883; we also have the original French version in the Library. [D Bott]
The estate of Judith Simon, 1804
22nd September 2015
Original document in the de Garis files in the Library. Nicolas de Garis compensates his co-heirs in rents for the extra part of the Courtil La Perchie he has taken with his préciput.
Victor Hugo and Guernsey: sparring with Palmerston
9th March 2015
The Guernsey reaction to Victor Hugo's letters on the death penalty, 1854; an examination of newspapers and other resources in the Library.
Le Marchant memorial, 1834
From The Star, April 28 1834.