Victor Hugo and the Visionary Novel

Between Hugo’s hell and redemption lies a broad canvas of symbolic circumstance where Brombert maneuvers brilliantly, examining such disparate themes as money, language, laughter, and showing how they are braided together in the larger design. * New York Review of Books *
By all odds the most thorough and critically sophisticated book on Hugo’s fiction to appear in English, or perhaps in any language… It is learned, literate, and witty, generous in its appreciations, and an authentic pleasure to read. * Washington Post Book World *
Nothing short of brilliant. Solidly researched, very well written, and full of original insights, it stands as a landmark in Hugo criticism. * Nineteenth-Century French Studies *
Victor Hugo and the Visionary Novel transcends its title, in that all of Hugo’s writings—poetic, political, dramatic, critical, public and private—are brought to bear on the novels, so that the book gives a vast picture of Hugo’s imagination and his thought on all vital matters… There is far more to be learned about Hugo’s mind from this book than from any of the biographies I have read, and it is, furthermore, exceptionally enjoyable reading. * French Review *