Introducing… the world’s first PODCAST about “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (“Notre-Dame de Paris”)! 🔔✨🐐💜
Every other Tuesday, we’ll cover a different Hunchback adaptation, starting with an in-depth series about Victor Hugo’s original novel. Expect historical insight, well-researched fun facts, exclusive interviews, and a new perspective on the story we all know and love.
Listen to “The Hunchcast” here: SPOTIFY | APPLE PODCASTS | YOUTUBE (or read episode transcripts HERE)
Follow us on social media: INSTAGRAM | TIKTOK | TUMBLR
people are always like “kowalski should have ended up with blowhole” “kowalski should have ended up with eva” “kowalski should have ended up with doris” no, kowalski should have ended up in therapy
In 2010, English archivist Adrian Glew read a set of memoirs by sculptor Henry Sibson, who worked as a stone carver at Notre Dame Cathedral in the early 1820s.
According to these memoirs, a stone carver named Monsieur Trajan worked on “large figures” spectulated to be for Notre Dame in the 6th arrondissement (district) of Paris under the supervision of a “humpbacked” government sculptor.
Victor Hugo lived in the 6th arrondissement at the same time.
Glew concluded that the humpbacked sculptor Sibson wrote about may have inspired Hugo to create the character Quasimodo, who features in his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris). In Glew’s press release, he noted:
“With [Victor Hugo’s] keen interest in the restoration of Notre Dame and his daily proximity to the ateliers and the cathedral, he may have witnessed M. Trajan and his ‘humpbacked’ boss, or even have known them.”
News publications worldwide, including Time, The Daily Telegraph, and The Huffington Post, reported the story as gospel. Glew’s claim has become so famous it has even inspired a movie. Netflix’s Quasimodo, which “reimagines the life of the man said to have inspired Victor Hugo’s iconic character, Quasimodo,” is in production.
There is only one problem with this claim: It is almost definitely false.
Throughout his life, Victor Hugo wrote detailed journal entries and letters to his colleagues and loved ones, the vast majority of which have survived to this day. It wasn’t uncommon for him to write about granular details, such as who he encountered on a particular day and what they discussed.
Neither Mons. Trajan nor his humpbacked boss are mentioned in ANY of Hugo’s surviving journal entries or letters.
If Victor Hugo really met this humpbacked sculptor, and if this sculptor made such a profound impact on Hugo that he was inspired to write him into a novel, why didn’t Hugo document their encounter(s)?
Additionally, the memoirs by Henry Sibson that Adrian Glew collected his information from “recall the period 1820–1821.”
According to literary historian and chronologist Jacques Seebacher, Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) was originally conceived in 1826 as a play about King Louis XI and his barber, and the story’s earliest conception didn’t include Quasimodo at all.
If Hugo really met this humpbacked sculptor in 1820–21, and if this sculptor really inspired Quasimodo, why didn’t the character play a role in the novel’s earliest conception half a decade later?
Also according to Seebacher, in Hugo’s earliest plot scenario, the character who would eventually be named Quasimodo is referred to as “le sourd-muet” (“the deaf-mute”). This indicates that Hugo didn’t think of Quasimodo first and foremost as a hunchback.
Being a hunchback was just a secondary impairment of Quasimodo’s, while it was the only impairment of this humpbacked sculptor’s, as far as we know.
The novel wasn’t even originally titled The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The original French title is Notre-Dame de Paris (“Notre Dame of Paris”). It wasn’t until the novel’s second English translation was published in 1833 that Quasimodo was made the titular character and given the designation “the hunchback.”
So, if this man wasn’t the inspiration for Quasimodo, who was?
In her biography of her husband, Madame Adele Hugo mentions a person Victor met while attending boarding school in Spain: a hunchbacked man with kinky red hair and odd clothes. The schoolboys nicknamed this man Corcovita (“little hump”).
As an adult, Victor regretted teasing the hunchbacked man and recalled him often.
Mme. Hugo wrote:
“Corcovita was no stranger to the idea which produced [...] Quasimodo.”
The effect of Adrian Glew’s lack of scrutiny was rampant misinformation, which has been regurgitated for over a decade and a half, culminating in the production of a Netflix movie.
But just because a man was a hunchback and worked near Notre Dame does not mean that man inspired The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Additional sources:
The Hunchcast of Notre Dame, Episode 2
“Victor Hugo: A Biography” by Graham Robb
“Victor Hugo By A Witness Of His Life” by Adèle Hugo
“Notre-Dame de Paris: Édition enrichie (Introduction, notes et chronologie)” by Jacques Seebacher
