While a coffee table book of très chic photographs looks great on a side table, there is nothing quite like the refinement that antique books bring to a space. With their leather-bound gilt spines and hand-crafted marbled covers, these written works are an art unto themselves.
I want to spotlight a very special set of books we just got in at our Houston Shop. It’s a selection of Victor Hugo’s classics, including every volume of his monumental novel Les Misérables. These antique books are from the Oeuvres Complètes de Victor Hugo, which is a special collector’s edition set of all of Monsieur Hugo’s epic written works, from his poems and essays to novels and plays.
Printed between 1892 and 1895, this version of Les Misérables included in the Oeuvres Complètes is the “Edition Ne Varietur” — the final, definitive edition of the novel based on Monsieur Hugo’s original manuscripts. It was published by Parisian publishing house Hetzel-Quantin and printed by P. Mouillot, an elite printer and typographer in Paris during the 1890s.
Also from our Oeuvres Complètes collection – an original copy of his Hunchback of Notre Dame
We also have a complete two volume copy of Monsieur Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, simply titled Notre-Dame de Paris in French. This fine collector’s edition predates even our copy of Les Misérables, having been printed in 1857, and it includes many hand-engraved illustrations.
Why these two collections from his Oevres Complètes are highly prized
When Napoleon III staged a coup d’état to seize power in 1851, Hugo was an outspoken critic of the new emperor, famously declaring, “When dictatorship becomes a fact, revolution becomes a right!” Fearing arrest and persecution, Hugo fled France, and lived on the English Channel island of Guernsey in self-exile during the reign of Napoleon III.
It was during this period of exile that many of his greatest works were published in France, making them all the more collectible.
Notre-Dame de Paris was more than just a novel; it was a call to action to preserve France’s many beautiful yet crumbling gothic cathedrals. When the emperor was deposed in 1870, Monsieur Hugo returned to France a national hero, cementing his place in French history as one of the country’s greatest patriots and writers of all time. When he passed in 1885, more than two million mourners joined his funeral procession in Paris, and he was laid to rest in the same crypt as Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires in French).
A monument in book form
This seven volume set from the Oeuvres Complètes de Victor Hugo will look truly impressive on any bibliophile’s bookshelf. Come stop by our Houston Shop — we’d love to show you this handsome collection in person, along with all of our other latest arrivals! Bisous bisous 💋🇫🇷
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