Napoleon Le Petit.

HUGO, Victor.

Item Number: 5853

Bruxelles: Londres, Jeffs Libraire- Editeur, 1852.

Sextodecimo, original cloth. Inscribed by Victor Hugo on the front free endpaper to the wife of General Adolphe Emmanuel Charles Le Flo,”Aux pieds de Madame Leflô le livre et l’auteur Victor Hugo.” In very good condition with some browning and overall light wear.

Napoléon le Petit (literally, "Napoleon the Little") was an influential political pamphlet by Victor Hugo which condemned the reign of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. Hugo lived in exile in Guernsey for most of Napoleon III's reign, and his criticism of the monarch was significant as he was one of the most prominent Frenchmen of the time, and was revered by many. It includes the concept of two and two make five as a denial of truth by authority, a notion later used by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four.