"Ninety-Three, A Historical Romance", by Victor Hugo, published by H.L. Burt Company, New York, undated, 1880s; illustrated.

Hard boards, original publisher's blue cloth [edge of front board slightly damaged - see pictures], gold lettering on spine; 5.1/4" x 7.1/2"; frontispiece with tissue guard and 7 monochrome plates on glossy paper, 443 pages, very good condition.

"Ninety-Three" (Quatrevingt-treize) is Hugo's last novel, published in 1874, three years after the bloody upheaval of the Paris Commune that resulted out of popular reaction the failure of Napoleon III to win the Franco-Prussian War. The novel concerns the Revolt in the Vendee and Chouannerie - the counter-revolutionary revolts in 1793 during the French Revolution. It is divided into three parts, but not chronologically; each part tells a different story, offering a different view of historical general events. The action mainly takes place in Brittany and in Paris.

Joseph Stalin read Ninety-Three as a young seminarian in Georgia and the character of Cimourdain, a former priest, "made a deep impression" on him.

English historian and philosopher of history, Herbert Butterfield, expressed admiration for Ninety-Three in his essay "The Historical Novel" (1924), describing the book as "a striking example of the epic of national freedom."

Ayn Rand greatly praised this book (and Hugo's writing in general), acknowledged it as a source of inspiration, and even wrote an introduction to one of its English-language editions which was later reprinted with edits as an essay in The Romantic Manifesto. Its influence can be especially discernible in the passages describing the Russian Civil War in Rand's "We the Living"— where, uncharacteristically for this staunchly anti-Communist writer, "Reds" as well as "Whites" are recognized for the sincerity of their convictions and presented as courageous and heroic.

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