Victor Marie Hugo (1802–1885). Notre Dame de Paris.
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. 1917.
. Appendix
On the title-page of the manuscript of Notre Dame de Paris there is the following note:
“I wrote the first three or four pages of Notre Dame de Paris on July 25, 1830. The Revolution of July interrupted me. Then my dear little Adèle came into the world (bless her!). I recommenced writing Notre Dame de Paris on September 1, and the work was concluded on January 15, 1831.”
Chapter I, “The Great Hall,” began thus in the manuscript:
“Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago to-day, July 25, 1830.”
The words “July 25, 1830,” were scratched out.
The date September 1 is put in at the paragraph beginning “If it could be given to us men of 1830,” etc.
At the bottom of the last page is written: “January 15, 1831, half past six in the evening.”
The manuscript of Notre Dame de Paris has hardly an erasure. The corrections are confined to a few titles of chapters.
The chapter “The Story of a Wheaten Cake” was originally entitled “The Story of the Courtesan’s Child.”
The chapter “Showing that a Priest and a Philosopher are Not the Same” was “The Philosopher Married.”
The chapter “The Little Shoe” was “The Goat Saved.”