1896. Novelist, poet, and dramatist, the most important of French Romantic writers. In the Preface to his historical play Cromwell, Hugo wrote that romanticism is the liberalism of literature. Hugo developed his own version of the historical novel, combining concrete, historical details with vivid, melodramatic, even feverish imagination. Among his best-known works are The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables. Contents: Letters to His Father and Mother; To Adele Hugo and Others-Journey to Reims-Coronation of Charles X; To Various Persons; To Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve; and To His Children.