Victor Hugo - His Life And Work His Life and Work

VICTOR HUGO HIS LIFE AND WORK BY A. P. DAVIDSON AUTHOR OF THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER. Dtf MAS PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY LONDON EVELEIGH NASH 1912 NOTE ALL lovers of literature will share the deep regret of Davidsons many personal friends that this is a post humous work. French literary history was always his hobby. Soon after he left Oxford he was a scholar of Keble and graduated in 1883 he be nn to make an abridged translation of the Memoirs of Dumas, devoting his evenings to the task at a time when he held the head mastership of one of our small north-country grammar schools, lie published the translation, and it went out of print, I think it was my friend Mr. Morris Colles who then persuaded him to undertake a Life of Dumas, in view of the approaching centenary. At all events, he did undertake it, and achieved a popular as well as a literary success and he further made himself known by a series of articles on French literary subjects, contributed to Macmillan s Magazine. Of one of these, dealing with Prosper M6rim6es Lettrcs a une Inconnw, 1 have a specially vivid recollection as a brilliant and incisive piece of work, lie would have liked, I think, to follow up Ms Life of Dumas with a Life of Mrimdc, in whose per sonality he took a peculiar interest, attested by many passing allusions in the present volume. He doubted, however and publishers also doubted whether the subject would prove attractive to English readers and he put the project aside and determined to write of Victor Hugo instead-The pressure of other work interposed some delay and he did not actually begin the biography until he was in the grip of his last, long illness vi PREFATORY NOTE My interest in the subjectwas almost equal to his and we often discussed it together agreeing on most points, and agreeing to differ on others. Our last talk about it took place in the summer of 1911, at Bon church, where he was staying in the hope of recovering his health. He was lying in a low chair in a beauti ful garden in that beautiful suburb of Vcntnor. The sheets of the manuscript which is now on my table were strewn on the grass beside him He was trying to put the final touches to it and he talked of returning to town, and seeing it through the press. But that, alas was not to be. His illness took an unfavourable turn soon after the day on which we parted on the Portsmouth platform and I have been asked to read the proofs, and to edit them if I found that they required editing, so that the book may reach the public in the form in which the author would have wished it to be presented to them. There was not a great deal to be done, and 1 have been anxious to do nothing which could be regarded as superfluous. My aim has been, in short, to revise the proofs as Davidson would himself have revised tlmn nowhere tampering with any expression of opinion, hut carefully correcting obvious slips of the pen, removing the few redundancies which he would have seen to he redundant, and making the few additions which lie obviously intended to make additions which there is no need to indicate, as they are quite inconsiderable, and are only made in order to prevent an appearance of abruptness in the closing pages...