Victor Hugo 
The Toilers of the Sea 

A fisherman encounters all the fury, and caprice, and treachery of outer nature in order to win a woman whom on his return he finds to have unconsciously but irrevocably lost her heart to another. But this plainest of stories is worked into genuine tragedy by an exercise of poetic power which, at least in some portions of its display, has very rarely been surpassed in literature. It is difficult to dissent from those who fancy they discover in the author’s three volumes a romance, an epic poem, and a drama of real life. There is also in the volumes a charming idyl, full of grace, sweetness, and simplicity. If there be anyone who can rise from the perusal of the book without feeling not only deeply moved, but also enlightened, chastened, and, for at least the moment, improved, ‘let no such man be trusted. »