Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Timeless Classics
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Timeless Classics
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Timeless Classics
    Audiobook (abridged)1 hour

    The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Timeless Classics

    Written by Victor Hugo

    Narrated by Saddleback Educational Publishing

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer, and Frollo, the archdeacon, are both in love with Esmeralda. But the beautiful gypsy has already married another man to save his life—and her heart belongs to an army captain!

    Poor Quasimodo doesn't have much of a chance. Then an angry crowd cries out for Esmeralda's blood, and Quasimodo proves that true love is eternal.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSaddleback Educational Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2011
    ISBN9781612475073
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Timeless Classics
    Author

    Victor Hugo

    Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is one of the most well-regarded French writers of the nineteenth century. He was a poet, novelist and dramatist, and he is best remembered in English as the author of Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). Hugo was born in Besançon, and became a pivotal figure of the Romantic movement in France, involved in both literature and politics. He founded the literary magazine Conservateur Littéraire in 1819, aged just seventeen, and turned his hand to writing political verse and drama after the accession to the throne of Louis-Philippe in 1830. His literary output was curtailed following the death of his daughter in 1843, but he began a new novel as an outlet for his grief. Completed many years later, this novel became Hugo's most notable work, Les Misérables.

    Related to The Hunchback of Notre Dame

    Related audiobooks

    YA Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Helena Bonham Carter

      Nov 22, 2019

      Helena Bonham Carter
      1 min read

    • Article

      Excerpts From The Works Of The 2024 Whiting Award Winners

      Apr 10, 2024

      The 2024 Whiting Award winners were announced Wednesday night. Below are excerpts from their work.

      19 min read

    • Article

      79 The Terrible Grinning Men

      Sep 10, 2020

      79 The Terrible Grinning Men
      8 min read

    • Article

      TALL, WIDE, and Piercing Eyes

      Mar 1, 2019

      TALL, WIDE, and Piercing Eyes
      7 min read

    • Article

      The PROMISE

      Sep 8, 2021

      The PROMISE
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Day That De Aar Turned Into A Circus

      Jan 22, 2021

      The glossy, brightly coloured posters sent a wave of excitement through the town. Pagel’s Wonder Circus was coming to De Aar! Children saved up their pocket money for weeks ahead of the annual event. Railway junctions had their advantages, especially

      4 min read

    • Article

      Towns Like Ours

      May 3, 2018

      Towns Like Ours
      9 min read

    • Article

      Hello, Grim Reaper

      Dec 15, 2021

      She was a babe. A fully paid-up, card-carrying babe. There was absolutely no doubt about it, and she was heading straight for me. She was almost sprinting towards me across the recently reimagined lobby of Claridge’s. She looked up, her scarlet-anoin

      3 min read

    • Article

      Where Ghosts Linger

      May 28, 2021

      Where Ghosts Linger
      10 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      A tender THREAD

      Dec 22, 2021

      A tender THREAD
      9 min read

    • Article

      The PROMISE

      Aug 25, 2021

      The PROMISE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Licensed To Chill

      Feb 24, 2022

      Licensed To Chill
      9 min read

    • Article

      Licensed To Chill

      Feb 24, 2022

      Licensed To Chill
      9 min read

    • Article

      My True Ghost Story

      Feb 9, 2022

      Last night I found a smudge of lipstick on my COVID mask. I don’t drink or suffer memory lapses and have no recollection of any intimate encounter that might have created this crimson blemish. In my previous – very popular – column in this periodical

      5 min read

    • Article

      If Sheep COULD FLY…

      Aug 3, 2022

      If Sheep COULD FLY…
      6 min read

    • Article

      The little NIGHTINGALE

      Dec 28, 2022

      The little NIGHTINGALE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Run, Baby, Run!

      Sep 25, 2023

      Run, Baby, Run!
      7 min read

    • Article

      ‘Death? I Can’t Wait For The Adventure!’ Most Haunted’s Yvette Fielding On Ghosts, Sceptics And The Afterlife

      Oct 4, 2022

      The First Lady of the Paranormal, also known as the Queen of the Night, is waiting for me at Crewe railway station in a bright red vintage Mini. I just about fold myself into the front seat. She cackles, performs a miraculous U-turn and puts her foot

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Thousand Embers

      Aug 13, 2023

      The old man’s grave hung like a mist over the whole of the wops. The world was still and soundless. Even the owl that watches over this place had ceased to call its name. Ru-ru. And though it wasn’t cold, an eerie chill possessed us, our breath visib

      3 min read

    • Article

      Take A Magpie Up To Heaven

      Nov 1, 2019

      Take A Magpie Up To Heaven
      2 min read

    • Article

      Quotients

      May 7, 2020

      Quotients
      8 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Hunchback of Notre Dame

    4/5

    52 ratings38 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
       This was difficult going. As ever with Hugo, there's an awful lot of very detaild description of things that are, of themsleves, quite interesting, but it doesn't half slow plot development. Things seem to happen in bursts with not a lot in the chapters in between.

      Maybe it took me too long to read it, maybe I didn't allow long enough to get really into it at once, but this was hard going.
    • 5/5
      Extremely underrated. Hugo's most famous work is without a doubt Les Mis but I can never figure out why. Hunchback is beautiful and tragic and lovely and heartbreaking. Richly detailed but not to the point of tedium. Dramatic characters but still beleivable. It's a kaleidoscope of emotion and fulfills everything you could want in a book. My all time favourite.
    • 5/5
      This is the kind of book that excites your deepest imaginative spaces and populates your dreams with dancing visions of gargoyles and gypsies... As Hugo admits himself, "if the book has any merit it is in being a work of imagination, of caprice and of fantasy." True, weaved into the larger-than-life story about impossible love, Hugo tries to paint perspectives upon a lively Paris of the early French Renaissance in the year 1482. He allows himself a good many digressions on architecture, on the cityscape and on quasi-historical points which might put off a reader interested exclusively in a good quick plot. Still as any reader will notice and hopefully feel, architecture, Paris and its layout, the people, and especially the eponymous cathedral of Notre Dame, play a crucial role in the way this story is told. These are not only elements in the background, setting the scene, they provide the bricks and raw material for the story. The imposing cathedral itself emerges as narrator and central character, a story-teller in its facade and - incarnated by the mythical Quasimodo in all of its bodily contradictions - a central player in the story. Hugo is trying to build a story the size of oral tradition, with the obscure feel of the middle ages, a story steeped in tradition and myth. His readers back in 1831 would also have recognized the power which he grants the people and popular revolution, and which he implies were unleashed with the printing press. Part indulgence in nostalgia, part concession to fate, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame ("Notre-Dame de Paris" in French) praises the Gothic art and esoteric science of the declining middle ages, while celebrating its demise and the glimmer portending of better things to come.
    • 3/5
      Decent story, but not wonderful. There was one moment that I believe was supposed to come as a shock and a big twist, but Hugo laid everything out in such a way as to make the surprise EXTREMELY predictable. Is it worth reading? Yes. Is it one of the best novels ever? Definitely not.
    • 4/5
      When one is doing evil 'tis madness to stop half-way.
    • 4/5
      Very cool how much research went into making this a learning experience about Paris in this time period, as well as a fantastic story. Learned a lot about architecture and all kinds of things. This is why I love historically accurate fiction!
    • 5/5
      Modern stories have done for me, they really have. As I was reading Hugo's masterpiece, I saw how all the relationships tied together from a very early point, and it seemed oh-so-inevitable and tiresomely predictable. Why? Because I've read books that take what Hugo did more than a century ago and have popularised the plot and technique, making it, for want of a better word, kitsch.But I read on to the end, enjoying myself almost reluctantly. My opinion changed when I reached the chapter about the King; no other writer I can think of would have been so brave to leave the action and excitement of the thieves' revolt to spend a good fifteen pages introducing the king of France, but there's a reason here, and possibly it's the reason for the writing of this book. It's extraordinary. And then I reached the harrowing conclusion, and now I cannot disagree with the critics that say that this is one of the finest stories ever written. I was moved to the point of tears.
    • 3/5
      I like the fiction but I don't like the story because it was sad and I couldn't understand the mind.However, I want the person who I can love as Quasimodo.
    • 5/5
      The classic tale set against the marvelously detailed description of the city. The story about Quasimodo, but it starts with him being praised. The hatred/prejudice comes only after misunderstandings. The overbearing message- ignorance breeds hatred. Worth the read.
    • 2/5
      Hugo is too long-winded and overly detailed. I was majorly bored with his heavy detail on a building or a road...so many details that they often detracted from the story.
    • 4/5
      I reallly liked this book, despite the fact that the ending was so sad, and completley not what I expected or wanted to happen. I loved the Disney version of it, but I knew that the book would not end like the movie. The writing was well written, and the story pulled me in. I liked Quasimodo. He was made to be a repulsive creature that no one could love, but he was kind of endearing. He just wanted to love and be loved by someone. Esmeralda was kind and beautiful, but kind of stupid. All she could think about was Pheobus, who didn't even love her back. Pheobus was a ladies man, and basically didn't care about anything. All in all, the book was very good. I just didn't like the ending. The only good thing was Pierre saved Djali
    • 4/5
      I was prepared for the novel to be vastly different from the Disney film, more serious and 'grown-up'. In the end the distance was probably less than I was expecting. Although naturally more complex, the novel is comic and carnivalesque in a way that feels somewhat Disney. All the characters are somewhat comically grotesque, and few of their actions feel truly human. I suppose the difference is in the absence of 'good' and 'bad' characters. Esmerelda and Phoebus are as comic and irrationally-driven as everyone else, and Frollo is more screw-eyed than he is evil. The hunchback himself is no protagonist, and to my mind no more interesting than other fringe characters like Clopin, Pierre and the mad mother in the cell.
    • 4/5
      A beautiful and tragic book.
    • 4/5
      Very detailed and hard to get through at times. Great ending!
    • 4/5
      When one is doing evil 'tis madness to stop half-way.
    • 4/5
      I became very tired of the architecture and culture of 14th century Paris before I finished this book. It was good reading when Hugo got down to the business of the story. I was so disappointed in the heroine, Esmeralda, that I didn't mind the ending so much. All in all, a pretty depressing cast of characters. Apparently, Hugo didn't think much of mankind. He did however, make the entire 15th century come alive. Something I think was unusual in the early 1800's when this was written. It made me glad to be alive now and not then.
    • 4/5
      “Notre-Dame de Paris”, the actual title of this book, is from Hugo’s early phase; it was published in 1831 when he was only 29. Quasimodo the hunchback, La Esmeralda the gypsy dancer, and Claude Frollo the archdeacon are all unforgettable. Bear with it in the beginning, as Hugo takes his time setting the stage of Paris in 1482. Less philosophical and learned than his later works, but enjoyable nonetheless.Just one quote, on love:“That little brother, without father or mother, that infant which dropped all at once from the sky into his arms, made a new man of him. He perceived that there was something in the world besides the speculations of the Sorbonne and the verses of Homer; that human beings have need of affections; that life without love is but a dry wheel, creaking and grating as it revolves.”
    • 5/5
      Great! Fast paced and terrific! See and then watch the movie for a different interpretation!
    • 5/5
      if it would not be for the long chapters of architecture about the church, this book would get 5 stars. This is really an action book with a highly dramatic ending. Great script for a movie.
    • 3/5
      Much more poignant, dramatic and even comical then I had been expecting.
    • 4/5
      I must admit I don't remember it well, but after seeing a trailer for the Disney movie I decided to read the book. I do remember it was moving and interesting. And since I'm generally pretty disgusted with Disney versions of classics, I won't be comparing the two.
    • 4/5
      It was interesting to read "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" after reading Victor Hugo's masterpiece "Les Miserables." I really enjoyed "Hunchback" but couldn't help but feel it was like reading "Les Miserables" light.Central to the story is Notre Dame-- around which most of the action takes place. A corrupt priest, a gypsy girl with a counting goat and, of course, the hunchback in the title, are interesting (and at times frustrating) characters. The story moves long aside from Hugo's trademark digressions into French history.I liked this book a lot, but if you're only going to read one book by Hugo in your lifetime, this isn't the one, of course!
    • 4/5
      Yet another great read by victor hugo. So much underlying meaning that still transforms to today alongside a great story on the surface. The struggles of inner vs outer beauty and acceptance will always be relatable, no matter the generation.
    • 3/5
      A bit tedious. The book seems to have had some sort of alternative agenda, but I'm a little unsure about what this was supposed to be. It hasn't aged well in my opinion, and I'm sure it would have been better received by Hugo's peers than by me.It took me a long time to read through the book and I found my thoughts wandering off quite a lot. The author has spent more time describing the architecture of 15th century Paris than his characters. This seemed to have been a dig at the architects of the 19th century, but was a little contrived and not particularly relevant for the rest of the story.
    • 3/5
      A little dry in parts, I would probably have enjoyed an abridged version more.
    • 2/5
      I liked it, but it didn't leave much of an impression on me. Might reread.
    • 5/5
      One of my all-time favorites. Sadly underrated and overlooked. I think it's Hugo's best, most full work.
    • 1/5
      Not sure if it was the narrator or the story itself but after listening to 2 hours of this audio I couldn't take it anymore. If it weren't for the Disney movie I really would have had no clue what was going on in the story. Sad because I've really like a lot of the other classics that I've done recently on audio - this just wasn't meant to be.
    • 4/5
      Some parts were tough to get through, especially the chapter called "Bird's Eye View of Paris". Good, compelling story. How it was made into a Disney movie is beyond me though. It's about "forbidden love" of a priest for a 15 year old girl who he kills for. The emotions of the characters could have been pursued farther, but a good story.
    • 4/5
      A hunchback, a gypsy, a mad priest. A church and a scaffold. Paris is not exactly the city of lights. Peopled by colourful characters, depraved creatures, hopeless beings, the architecture of the city, however, is a sight to behold. And the church of Notre Dame is the most magnificent of all.I enjoyed very much Hugo's writing, including the digressions on the evolution of architecture as a form of “writing” and immortality, as well as the portrayal of the center of the city, street by street. I didn't enjoy the story very much, though – it was carrying martyrdom too far. The priest was vile, the soldier petty, and Esmeralda not just cloying but downright foolish, too. Quasimodo, however, made up for all that – pity he didn't live a happier life. Though it doesn't hold a candle to Les Mis, I'm still glad to have read this, as I greatly admire Hugo's ability to paint images with words.