The Last Day of a Condemned Man

A set of very interesting stories from the teen-aged Hugo. It's hard to believe her wrote "Bug Jargal" when he was only 17, but a great deal of that youthful heroism, adventure-seeking, and action story comes through in the story. This is also a good read for those interested in the Haitian revolution and independence, neatly woven into stories in which Hugo's own royalist ideas come through.

I picked this book up due to the noted reference in Dostoevski's "The Idiot" (He considered it a masterpiece) and I found it to be as good as I had anticipated. This edition comes in a nice contemporary cover (with apparent convicts of recent date), which didn't seem "classic" at first, but upon second thought made the work transcend the era in which it was written and open up thought on contemporary capital punishment. The language is poignant and vivid, the overall tone is intimate, and the structure offers lucid imagery that really confronts, not only the plight of a 'condemned' man, but the finitude to which we all face. Excellent and quick read.

I read this book decades ago, now I'm just searching it for my son who is finishing his studies in France. This is not a review of a particular edition, it's a stating on the original french text of "Le dernier jour d'un condamné". This work is a masterpiece of literature of all times. It is written in the first person, the title tells it all, now it's up to you to find the best EN translation or to read it in FR. You won't be deceived: this text belongs to the cultural heritage of mankind.

After reading Les Miserables I bought The Last Day of a Condemned Man, I was not expecting an masterpiece like Les Miserables and, because of that, I had such a great surprise, it's a short book but with an energetic message, it shows the horrors of the condemned, the psycological efects in his person when hes own daughter do not recognize him, everiday expecting only death, and with feeling, truth and talent, Victor Hugo show us why the penalty of death is horrendous to anyone.

I originally read the French version of this book, with a preface (which is probably in the English translation, no doubt) that is an essay of the reasons to abolish the death penalty. Abolishing "la peine de mort" was the point of this book, published in 1830, a year before Hugo published Notre-Dame de Paris (a.k.a. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame); Hugo was 27. The essay logically spells out why the death penalty should be abolished; the actual narrative of the story - a journal that the main character keeps of his every thought and feeling in the six weeks from his sentencing to the moment before he is taken to the Place de Greve to be guillotined - moves the reader emotionally. What was relevant in France in the 18th cent. is relevant in the U.S. today.