Hugo, V: The Distance, the Shadows: Poetica

Harry Guest was born in Penarth in 1932. He read Modern Languages at Cambridge before becoming a teacher in England and Japan. A Puzzling Harvest was published in the in 2003 to mark the poet's 70th birthday. Victor Hugo was born February 26, 1802 in Besançon, France. He was an avid advocate of social justice; In 1851, after the unsuccessful revolt against President Louis Napoleon, Hugo fled to Brussels and then to the island of Guernsey. Hugo's exile lasted for almost 20 years. Finally, he returned to France, resuming his role in politics and eventually becoming a senator. He died May 22, 1885, in Paris, and was given a national funeral that was attended by two million people.

Victor Hugo, the most prolific and versatile of the French Romantics, is one of the greatest nineteenth-century writers. Partly because of its enormous range and variety, his poetry has remained comparatively little known outside France. This title of his acclaimed translations brings into English many of Hugo's great qualities.