# Is "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris)" by Victor Hugo a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris) by Victor Hugo (Charles Gosselin, Paris, 1831) is identified by: French true first: Notre-Dame de Paris, Charles Gosselin, Libraire, Paris, 1831, 2 volumes 8vo (collating approx. Census claim confirmed on both halves.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- French true first: Notre-Dame de Paris, Charles Gosselin, Libraire, Paris, 1831, 2 volumes 8vo (collating approx. [8], 404 and [4], 536 pp.), published 16 March 1831, with wood-engraved title vignettes after Tony Johannot; complete sets retain the volume half-titles with their verso advertisements, the fly-titles, and all nine interior half-titles
- The single impression of 1,100 copies was split by the publisher into four issues of roughly 275 copies each, the later three carrying fictitious 'deuxieme edition', 'troisieme edition' and 'quatrieme edition' statements on reprinted title-pages so the public would think the novel was flying off the shelves
- The first issue is therefore the one with NO edition statement, and the surer second test is that Hugo's name is ABSENT from the title-pages — his name was added along with the edition statements on the three reprinted titles
- All four issues are textually identical and share the printer's pagination errors in volume II (p
- 439 misnumbered '339', p
- 491 misnumbered '391'), so those errors confirm the 1831 impression but do not separate the first issue from the other three
- Publisher imprint reads Charles Gosselin, Paris

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Victor Hugo |
| Publisher | Charles Gosselin, Paris |
| Year | 1831 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | French true first: Notre-Dame de Paris, Charles Gosselin, Libraire, Paris, 1831, 2 volumes 8vo (collating approx. [8], 404 and [4], 536… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
French true first: Notre-Dame de Paris, Charles Gosselin, Libraire, Paris, 1831, 2 volumes 8vo (collating approx. [8], 404 and [4], 536 pp.), published 16 March 1831, with wood-engraved title vignettes after Tony Johannot; complete sets retain the volume half-titles with their verso advertisements, the fly-titles, and all nine interior half-titles. The single impression of 1,100 copies was split by the publisher into four issues of roughly 275 copies each, the later three carrying fictitious 'deuxieme edition', 'troisieme edition' and 'quatrieme edition' statements on reprinted title-pages so the public would think the novel was flying off the shelves. The first issue is therefore the one with NO edition statement, and the surer second test is that Hugo's name is ABSENT from the title-pages — his name was added along with the edition statements on the three reprinted titles. All four issues are textually identical and share the printer's pagination errors in volume II (p. 439 misnumbered '339', p. 491 misnumbered '391'), so those errors confirm the 1831 impression but do not separate the first issue from the other three. Copies are normally encountered rebound in contemporary or later calf or morocco. First English: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, translated expressly by Frederic Shoberl 'with a sketch of the life and writings of the author', London: Richard Bentley, 1833, ONE volume, small 8vo, issued as No. XXXII in Bentley's Standard Novels, with an engraved frontispiece and an additional vignette title; the Standard Novels title-page must be present (it is frequently lacking), and original copies are recorded in mauve cloth with two gilt-lettered black leather spine labels. Bentley 1833 precedes the first American edition by about a year.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim confirmed on both halves. The French Gosselin edition of 1831 is the true first, and the title 'The Hunchback of Notre-Dame' has no counterpart in Hugo's French — it originates with the 1833 Bentley translation, so every English-language 'Hunchback' first descends from a retitling. The major 'first thus' trap runs the other way from the usual: the 1831 Gosselin first is textually INCOMPLETE. Gosselin forced Hugo to drop three chapters — IV.6 'Impopularite' and both chapters of Book V, 'Abbas beati Martini' and the famous 'Ceci tuera cela' — because the manuscript would not fit the contracted two volumes. The first complete text is the Eugene Renduel edition, Paris, 3 volumes 8vo, on sale 17 December 1832, styled 'huitieme edition' although it is the first to print the three chapters and the added note in which Hugo invented a tale of lost-and-recovered manuscript pages. So Gosselin 1831 is the first edition and Renduel 1832 is the first complete edition; both are collected, and a dealer calling Renduel 1832 'the definitive first' is describing text, not priority.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club structure applies to an 1831/1833 book; the practical analogues are marketing fictions and later reissues. Gosselin's own 'deuxieme/troisieme/quatrieme edition' title-pages are not later editions at all — they are the same 1831 printing given false statements — but they are equally not first issue. Bentley reissued the Shoberl translation repeatedly in Standard Novels through the 1830s and 1840s, and those later impressions look nearly identical. Renduel's 1832 'eighth edition' and the illustrated Renduel of 1836 are later editions notwithstanding catalogue copy that promotes them as 'first complete' or 'first illustrated', and the Hetzel/Houssiaux collected sets and modern facsimiles are reprints.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris)* by Victor Hugo a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-hunchback-of-notre-dame-notre-dame-de-paris
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.