Victor Hugo 
Hans of Iceland 

Since the awful times in which Monk Lewis used to chill the blood of the reading public, and revived in persons of mature age the terrors’ of infancy, there was hardly a romance so horrible, and, at the same time, so well written, as Hans of Iceland. The author has not confined himself to natural horrors, but has introduced, in the being who gives name to the work, a sort of half-demon, whose delight is in wickedness and cruelty. The book is a clever specimen of what is popularly known as the ’blood and thunder’ style of novel.