Notre-Dame de Paris

Set in Paris in 1482, the novel centres on Notre-Dame Cathedral, Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Claude Frollo, Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire. The story moves through the streets, courts, churches and marginal communities of late medieval Paris, using the cathedral as both setting and symbol.

Although its main figures are largely fictional, the book is strongly rooted in the reign of Louis XI and in the medieval city that surrounded Notre-Dame. Hugo uses Gothic architecture, popular justice, church authority and urban spectacle to present a society where beauty, power, fear and exclusion are inseparable.