Toilers of the Sea

Toilers of the Sea is a novel by Victor Hugo published in 1866. The book is dedicated to the island of Guernsey, where Hugo spent 15 years in exile. Hugo uses the setting of a small island community to transmute seemingly mundane events into drama of the highest calibre. Les Travailleurs de la Mer is set just after the Napoleonic Wars and deals with the impact of the Industrial Revolution upon the island.

The story concerns a Guernseyman named Gilliatt, a social outcast who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of a local shipowner, Mess Lethierry. When Lethierry's ship is wrecked on the double Douvres, a perilous reef, Deruchette promises to marry whoever can salvage the ship's steam engine. (The cliff of the double Douvres is not the same as the well-known and also dangerous Roches Douvres, which today has a lighthouse - Hugo himself draws attention to this in the work.) Gilliatt eagerly volunteers, and the story follows his physical trials and tribulations (which include a battle with an octopus), as well as the undeserved opprobrium of his neighbours. (wikipedia. org)

About the Author

Victor-Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 - 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms.

His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misé rables (1862). In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections, such as Les Contemplations and La Lé gende des siè cles (The Legend of the Ages). Hugo was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play Cromwell and drama Hernani. His works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the opera Rigoletto and the musicals Les Misé rables and Notre-Dame de Paris. He produced more than 4, 000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment and slavery.

Although he was a committed royalist when young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, serving in politics as both deputy and senator. His work touched upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His opposition to absolutism, and his literary stature, established him as a national hero. Hugo died on 22 May 1885, aged 83. He was given a state funeral in the Panthé on of Paris, which was attended by over two million people, the largest in French history. (wikipedia. org)