Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Terrible Year, Part 1: The Siege of Paris

The Terrible Year, Part 1: The Siege of Paris

Rutherford, Brett
Hugo, Victor

Paperback

General Poetry

ISBN13: 9798272022455
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Nov 3 2025
Pages: 210
Weight: 0.63
Height: 0.44 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
This two-volume set is a poem cycle of epic length, in which the 68-year-old Victor Hugo, returning to Paris after two decades of exile, lives and witnesses the siege of his city by the Prussian army, his nation's humiliating surrender after bombardment and starvation, and then the chaos and violence of civil war. Members of the Paris Commune set Parisian historical and cultural landmarks on fire, and in the repression that followed, the new government carried out summary executions of as many as 15,000 French citizens. If the fall of Troy marked a terrible year for Homer, the disasters Hugo recounts from August 1870 through July 1871 are on a scale rivaling any epic of war and catastrophe.

No more than a quarter of this work has ever appeared in book form in English, despite Hugo's pre-eminence in poetry, drama, and fiction. The narrative poems in The Terrible Year pack the same power as Hugo's fiction, and some have an overwhelming emotional impact. For the more abstract poems in which Hugo meditates on the long flow of history and the immediate politics of his time, the translator has provided ample footnotes to provide context for allusions to persons, places, and events. Part 1 includes poems covering the months from August 1870 through January 1871.

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