Novelist, playwright, poet, painter, human-rights activist and states-man, Victor Hugo (1802-85) was one of the most influential figures of nineteenth-century France and is still considered its greatest writer.

A first-person diary of a prisoner's final day before being executed for an unspecified crime, Victor Hugo's poignant tale vividly conveys the mental anguish of a man confronted with the intransigent mechanism of justice, as his mind seeks refuge in recollections from his past and philosophical musings on his inevitable fate.

As relevant today as when it was first published in 1829, The Last Day of a Condemned Man is an eloquent plea for compassion and a masterpiece of realist fiction.

Absolutely the most real and truthful of everything that Hugo wrote.

Hugo... provides a convincing reminder of what political argument should really be about