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Adding to our collection of French Nineteenth Century Travel Writing, our new extended translation of Victor Hugo's 'The Pyrenees' (En Voyages: Alpes et Pyrénées, 1843) is now available here.

On July 18, 1843, Hugo, then aged 41, began a summer trip. The nigh-on two-month journey took him from the Loire to the Île d’Oléron, off the west coast of France, passing through Spain and the Pyrenees. He penned this travel journal which he intended to publish, however, he received news of the tragic death of his daughter Leopoldine and her husband, on September 4th, who died when their boat capsized on the Seine. He ended his travels, and immediately returned to Paris. His account of his travels appeared, belatedly, in 1880, published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel (pen-name P. J. Stahl) and as a separate, posthumous, edition in 1890, as part of En Voyages: Alpes et Pyrénées.

This enhanced translation has been designed to offer maximum compatibility with current search engines. Among other modifications, the proper names of people and places, and the titles given to works of art, have been fully researched, modernised, and expanded; comments in parentheses have been added here and there to provide a reference, or clarify meaning; and minor typographic or factual errors, for example incorrect attributions and dates, in the original text, have been eliminated from this new translation.