Notre-Dame de Paris

First released in 1821 “Notre-Dame de Paris” sprang from the creative mind of a young 29-year-old, Victor Hugo, and combines drama, epic, picaresque and poetry. Paris, 1482. The Romani have occupied the “Court of Miracles”, an area on the city’s outskirts where caravans depart for magic shows which, in reality, are a diversion for murders and thefts. The only person to distance herself from this way of life is Esmeralda, a beautiful young dancer. Quasimodo is the cathedral’s bell-ringer and watchers her as he perches above the gargoyles. The Archdeacon Claude Frollo orders Quasimodo, who himself loves Esmerelda, to kidnap the young Romani for him, but the girl’s heart belongs to the captain of the guards, Phoebus de Châteaupers. It is Quasimodo who saves her life by carrying her off to Notre-Dame, invoking the law of sanctuary. Hugo’s famous historical novel is accompanied perfectly with the illustrations by Benjamin Lacombe in the Ippocampo edition. The artist’s creations combine with Hugo’s words to breath life into the protagonists and build a new fictional imagery. The care and precision that goes into the descriptions, which are so richly detailed, have in turn allowed Lacombe to be painstaking in his illustrations and mean that readers can immerse themselves right away in the plot as silent observers and witnesses. This is amplified by the sketches accompanying the text which spring from the author’s sensitivity, and in which the characters and the setting come to life . And providing the backdrop to the events is the cathedral’s breathtaking architecture.  

Notre-Dame de Paris
by Victor Hugo, with illustrations by Benjamin Lacombe
L’Ippocampo, 2022