ABRIDGED EDITION

What if you actually made progress in French by reading a masterpiece — no dictionary, no effort, no giving up?

This book is a bilingual edition: it contains the abridged novel in French AND in English, together in the same volume. You read French; English is right there to help you.

Why a bilingual book? Unlike apps and textbooks, you learn with a real story that makes you want to turn the page. It is the most natural immersion method there is.

— THE METHOD —

Ordinary bilingual editions make you lose the thread: the French text on the left, the English text on the right, and your eyes darting back and forth hunting for the right line. The result: you give up in the first few pages.

Polyglot Publishing invented something else: synchronised line-by-line alternation. Every line in French is followed directly beneath by the same line in English — like subtitles, but on paper.

• Understand everything, instantly — the meaning of each word is checked at a glance, with no dictionary and no phone
• Improve without noticing — your brain links the two languages unconsciously, sentence after sentence, and French grammar sinks in naturally
• Learn French by finally reading what you love — a real novel, not textbook dialogue

Suitable for every level: the translation helps when you need it — and never gets in the way of your reading.

--> Browse the sample above to see the method in action.

— THE BOOK —

Paris, 1482: the gypsy Esmeralda dances on the Place de Grève while the city keeps the Feast of Fools. Quasimodo, the cathedral's misshapen bell-ringer, and Claude Frollo, the archdeacon who raised him, are both overcome by her.

Between cloister, Court of Miracles and pillory, she becomes the stake of a desire that will not admit itself. The novel explores fanaticism, the violence of crowds, beauty and ugliness, and the cathedral as a memory in stone. Hugo makes medieval Paris a character in its own right, rebuilt street by street.

--> Browse the sample above to discover the opening of the story.