The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris, lit. 'Our Lady of Paris', originally titled Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482) is a French Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story of Quasimodo, the Romani street dancer Esmeralda and Quasimodo's guardian the Archdeacon Claude Frollo in 15th-century Paris. All its elements—Renaissance setting, impossible love affairs, marginalized characters—make the work a model of the literary themes of Romanticism. The novel has been described as a key text in French literature and has been adapted for film over a dozen times, in addition to numerous television and stage adaptations, such as a 1923 silent film with Lon Chaney, a 1939 sound film with Charles Laughton, and a 1996 Disney animated film with Tom Hulce. The novel sought to preserve values of French culture in a time period of great change, which resulted in the destruction of many French Gothic structures. The novel made Notre-Dame de Paris a national icon and served as a catalyst for renewed interest in the restoration of Gothic form.