Victor Hugo Went To Desperate Measures In Order To Stay Focused On His Writing

Publish date: 2024-05-04

Everyone who knew Victor Hugo — and even those who didn't — viewed him through a lens of rampant eccentricity. However, a predisposition for alternative thinking and unusual behaviors doesn't always guarantee that you're going to write a good book. According to The Guardian, it was Hugo's custom to lock himself away in a dark room with nothing but his writing utensils and his internal musings to keep him company. 

In fact, Hugo was rumored to place himself in isolation without a single stitch of clothing on his back (per Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, posted at the National Library of Medicine). Evidently, he felt that even his own garments could become a disruption to his craft. After all, you're not likely to step out in public and interact with people if you're stark naked (not unless you're looking to land an indecent exposure charge, that is). The farthest he ever went in the way of dressing himself while writing was, according to his wife's memoir, a single piece of fabric that did nothing more than keep him warm while he penned "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" (1831) behind closed doors. She described it as "a huge grey knitted shawl, which swathed him from head to foot," and that he "locked his formal clothes away so that he would not be tempted to go out and entered his novel as if it were a prison. He was very sad" (via The Guardian).

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