In the death row cell waits a man for his last day, who knows perfectly well: he has nothing more to hope for. But for now, he is still alive. He thinks. He feels. He remembers... Victor Hugo, an active opponent of the death penalty, went for high purposes into literary mystification — in 1829 he published a short story The Last Day of the Condemned Man anonymously, under the guise of a genuine diary of a man sentenced to the highest punishment. A sensational success followed, and after his name was revealed — an equally unprecedented campaign against Hugo in the press... However, the names of the slanderers have long been forgotten, and the story remains one of the strongest works in defense of the inalienable human right even of a criminal to life. The collection also includes the play Ruy Blas, which belongs to the romantic period of Hugo's creativity.
