Victor Hugo, in full Victor Marie Hugo b February 26, 1802, Besan on, France d May 22, 1885, Paris, France , poet, playwrighter, novelist, dramatist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner, and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France, who was the most important of the French Romantic writers Though regarded in France as one of that country s greatest poets, he is better known abroad for such novels as Notre Dame de Paris 1831 and Les Mis rables 1862.