700

Victor Hugo

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:1,500.00 - 2,000.00 USD
Victor Hugo

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Auction Date:2016 Feb 10 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS in French, one page, 5 x 8, November 30, 1868. Letter to a gentleman. In full (translated): "I have received your eloquent letter and I hope you have received my contribution in response to it, although a ‘sanitary cordon’ seems to have been established around my island and I feel the mail service now looks somewhat like the Police. ‘Facies non… una, non diversa tamen, qualem decet e sororom.’ I send with this letter a new contribution to your cause. Will it reach you? The Republican committees of Spain have written to me, and I am now answering. The matter now is slavery. Be no subjects to a king and own no slaves. Have no king in Madrid and no negroes in Cuba.” Irregular scattered spotting and staining, haloing to ink, and many areas of ink erosion to words and letters throughout, otherwise very good condition.

While the literary angle of this letter is quite interesting—with Hugo interjecting a Latin quote from Ovid from memory, translating to ‘Their faces were not all alike, nor yet unlike, but such as those of sisters ought to be’—the historical context is even more so. Spain was in the midst of two major political transitions, one regarding the monarchy and the second regarding colonial slavery. Less than two months before Hugo penned this letter, Isabella was ousted from her throne in the Glorious Revolution, leaving the country wavering between reestablishing a monarchy or creating a republic. The year prior, the slave trade had been abolished in Cuba—then a Spanish colony—but the practice of slavery itself still remained. On both of these issues Hugo took a firm and vocal political stand, in favor of the Spanish Republic and in support of the abolition of slavery in Cuba. Despite his activism, Spain ultimately remained a monarchy and slavery remained legal in Cuba until 1886 when it was abolished by royal decree. Fantastic historical content from the literary master and outspoken social activist.