Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo's first mature work of fiction appeared in 1829. It reflected his interest for society which appeared more often in his later work. Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (The Last Day of a Condemned Man) had a big influence on later writers such as Albert Camus, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Claude Gueux appeared in 1834. It is a documentary short story about a real-life murderer who had been executed in France. Hugo himself considered it to be a precursor to his great work on social injustice, Les Misérables. But Hugo’s first successful novel Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), which was published in 1831. It was quickly translated into other languages across Europe. One of the effects of the novel was to make the inhabitants of Paris restore the neglected Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was attracting thousands of tourists who had read the popular novel. The book also inspired a renewed appreciation for pre-renaissance buildings, which began to be actively preserved.