Excerpt from Dramatic Works of Victor Hugo As the Translator of "Hernani" and "Ruy Blas," I may be permitted to offer a few remarks on the three great dramas which are now presented in an English form to the English-speaking public. Each of these works is preceded by the Author's Preface, which perhaps exhausts all that had to be said of the play which follows - from his own original point of view. It is curious to contrast the confident egotism, the frequent self-assertion, and the indignation at repression which mark the prefaces to "Hernani" and "Le Roi s'Amuse" with the calm dignity of the very fine dramatic criticism which introduces the reader to "Ruy Blas." But when the last-named tragedy was produced, Victor Hugo's fame was established and his literary position secure; he no longer had need to assert himself, for if a few enemies still remained, their voices were but as the buzzing of flies about a giant. Trusting that the Author's Prefaces will be carefully read, I will endeavour only to supplement what is said in them. "Hernani" belongs emphatically to the romantic school, and to the period in European literature when the bonds of olden custom in all the arts were being broken - often for good results, though not always. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In this book, Albert W. Halsall presents the first complete treatment in English of Hugo's plays - a history, plot summary, and detailed analysis of all the dramas, from Cromwel and Torquemada to the juvenilia and the epic melodrama Les Burgraves.