Distance, the Shadows

Victor Hugo, the most prolific and versatile of the French Romantics, is one of the greatest nineteenth-century writers. Partly because of its enormous range and variety, his poetry has remained comparatively little known outside France. In this new edition of his acclaimed translations, Harry Guest convincingly brings into English many of Hugo's great qualities: his passion for social justice, his simple humanity and an imaginative breadth of vision which few poets have equalled. The book's usefulness is enhanced by the inclusion of the French texts, drawn as they are from so many different periods of Hugo's work. Harry Guest was born in Penarth in 1932. He read Modern Languages at Cambridge before beginning a career as a teacher in schools and universities in Japan and England. With his wife, Lynn Guest, a historical novelist, he now lives in Exeter. A Puzzling Harvest, his collected poems 1955-2000, is also published by Anvil.