ALS in French, one page, 5 x 6, January 4, 1866. Addressed from Hauteville House, the Guernsey mansion where he lived during his exile from France, a handwritten letter to an unidentified recipient, in full (translated): “My dear fellow citizen, my sore eyes have delayed my reply. Here you have it! Hauteville House — 4 January 1866. I request Mr. Lacroix, Paris, Librairie Internationale, to send in my name, from the volumes to which I have a right, a copy of Les Misérables (one volume, illustrated, popular edition) to Mr. J. B. Bocquet, professor, for the library of the French refugees in London.” In fine condition, with some light edge toning.
Due to upheavals in France, London became home to hundreds if not thousands of revolutionary-republican and socialist exiles during the latter half of the 19th century. Few French exiles were as well-known as Hugo, who lived at Hauteville House in Guernsey from 1856 to 1870 after being forced from his home by Napoleon III's coup of 1851. It was on the British isle of Guernsey where Hugo would write Les Miserables and, in 1866, he would forward the novel’s new illustrated version to another French refugee, Jean Baptiste Bocquet, who was hired by University College London twice, first as an exile during the Second Empire and again after fleeing the destruction of the Paris Commune.
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