Toilers of the Sea
Encyclopedia
Toilers of the Sea is a novel by Victor Hugo
.
The book is dedicated to the island of Guernsey
, where Hugo spent 15 years in exile.
The story concerns a Guernseyman named Gilliatt, a social outcast who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of a local shipowner, Mess
Lethierry. When Lethierry's ship is wrecked on the Roches Douvres
, a perilous reef, Deruchette promises to marry whomever can salvage the ship's steam engine.
Gilliatt eagerly volunteers, and the story follows both his physical trials and tribulations (which includes a battle with an octopus
), as well as the undeserved opprobrium of his neighbours.
Like The Book of Ebenezer Le Page
by G. B. Edwards
, the author uses the setting of a small island community to transmute seemingly mundane events into drama of the highest calibre. Les Travailleurs de la Mer is set just after the Napoleonic Wars
, and also deals with the impact of the Industrial Revolution
upon the Island.
A woman arrives in Guernsey, with her son Gilliat, and buys a house said to be haunted. The boy grows up, the woman dies. Gilliat becomes a good fisherman and sailor. People believe him to be a wizard.
In Guernsey also lives a former sailor, Mess Lethierry, the owner of the first steam ship of the island -Durande- and his niece Deruchette. One day, near Christmas, when going to church, she sees Gilliat on the road behind her and writes his name in the snow. He sees this and becomes obsessed with her gesture. In time he falls in love with her and goes to play the bagpipes near her house.
Sieur Clubin, the trusted captain of Durande, sets up a plan to sink the ship in the Hanois cilffs and flee with a ship of Spanish smugglers, Tamaulipas. He gets in touch with Rantaine, a swindler who had stolen a large sum of money from Mess Lethierry many years ago, which he gives to Clubin.
In thick fog, Clubin sails for the Hanois cliffs from where he can easily swim to the shore, meet the smugglers and disappear, leaving the appearance of having drowned. Instead, he loses his way and sails to the Douvres cliffs which are much further from the shore. Left alone on the ship, he is terrified but he sees a cutter and leaps into the water to catch it. In that moment he feels grabbed by the leg and pulled down to the bottom.
Everybody in Guernsey finds out about the shipwreck. Mess Lethierry, desperate to get the Durande's engine back, promises that his niece will marry the man who salvages it. Gilliat immediately takes up the mission, enduring hunger, thirst and cold trying to free the engine from the wreck. In a battle with an octopus, he finds the skeleton of Clubin and the stolen money on the bottom of the sea.
Eventually he succeeds in returning the engine to Lethierry, who is very pleased and ready to honour his promise. Gilliat appears in front of the people as the rescuer but he declines to marry Deruchette because he had seen her accepting a marriage proposal made by Ebenezer Caudry, the young priest recently arrived on the island. He attends their wedding and helps them to run away with Cashmere. In the end, with all his dreams shattered, he decides to wait for the tide sitting on the Gild Holm'Ur chair (a rock in the sea) and drowns.
edition under the title Toilers of the Sea.
Hugo had originally intended his essay L'Archipel de la Manche (The Archipelago of the [English] Channel) as an introduction to this novel, although it was not published until 1883, and the two have only been published together in the 20th century.
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
.
The book is dedicated to the island of Guernsey
Guernsey
Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.The Bailiwick, as a governing entity, embraces not only all 10 parishes on the Island of Guernsey, but also the islands of Herm, Jethou, Burhou, and Lihou and their islet...
, where Hugo spent 15 years in exile.
The story concerns a Guernseyman named Gilliatt, a social outcast who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of a local shipowner, Mess
Mr.
Mister, usually written in its abbreviated form Mr or Mr. , is a commonly used English honorific for men under the rank of knighthood. The title derived from master, as the equivalent female titles, Mrs., Miss, and Ms, all derived from the archaic mistress...
Lethierry. When Lethierry's ship is wrecked on the Roches Douvres
Roches-Douvres Light
Roches-Douvres Light is an active lighthouse in Côtes-d'Armor France. At a height of it is the twenty-fourth tallest "traditional lighthouse" in the world....
, a perilous reef, Deruchette promises to marry whomever can salvage the ship's steam engine.
Gilliatt eagerly volunteers, and the story follows both his physical trials and tribulations (which includes a battle with an octopus
Octopus
The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...
), as well as the undeserved opprobrium of his neighbours.
Like The Book of Ebenezer Le Page
The Book of Ebenezer Le Page
The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is a novel by Gerald Basil Edwards first published in United Kingdom by Hamish Hamilton in 1981, and in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf in the same year...
by G. B. Edwards
Gerald Basil Edwards
Gerald Basil Edwards , was a British author.- Biography :Edwards is known for The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, which was published posthumously in 1981...
, the author uses the setting of a small island community to transmute seemingly mundane events into drama of the highest calibre. Les Travailleurs de la Mer is set just after the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, and also deals with the impact of the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
upon the Island.
Plot summary
In Guernsey also lives a former sailor, Mess Lethierry, the owner of the first steam ship of the island -Durande- and his niece Deruchette. One day, near Christmas, when going to church, she sees Gilliat on the road behind her and writes his name in the snow. He sees this and becomes obsessed with her gesture. In time he falls in love with her and goes to play the bagpipes near her house.
Sieur Clubin, the trusted captain of Durande, sets up a plan to sink the ship in the Hanois cilffs and flee with a ship of Spanish smugglers, Tamaulipas. He gets in touch with Rantaine, a swindler who had stolen a large sum of money from Mess Lethierry many years ago, which he gives to Clubin.
In thick fog, Clubin sails for the Hanois cliffs from where he can easily swim to the shore, meet the smugglers and disappear, leaving the appearance of having drowned. Instead, he loses his way and sails to the Douvres cliffs which are much further from the shore. Left alone on the ship, he is terrified but he sees a cutter and leaps into the water to catch it. In that moment he feels grabbed by the leg and pulled down to the bottom.
Everybody in Guernsey finds out about the shipwreck. Mess Lethierry, desperate to get the Durande's engine back, promises that his niece will marry the man who salvages it. Gilliat immediately takes up the mission, enduring hunger, thirst and cold trying to free the engine from the wreck. In a battle with an octopus, he finds the skeleton of Clubin and the stolen money on the bottom of the sea.
Eventually he succeeds in returning the engine to Lethierry, who is very pleased and ready to honour his promise. Gilliat appears in front of the people as the rescuer but he declines to marry Deruchette because he had seen her accepting a marriage proposal made by Ebenezer Caudry, the young priest recently arrived on the island. He attends their wedding and helps them to run away with Cashmere. In the end, with all his dreams shattered, he decides to wait for the tide sitting on the Gild Holm'Ur chair (a rock in the sea) and drowns.
Characters
- Gilliatt: a fisherman
- Mess Lethierry: owner of the ship Durande, the island's first steam ship
- Déruchette: Mess Lethierry's young niece
- Sieur Clubin: captain of the Durande
- Ebenezer Caudray: young Anglican priest, recently arrived on the island
Influence
The novel is credited with introducing the Guernesiais word for octopus pieuvre into the French language (standard French for octopus is poulpe).Dedication
The following dedication appears at the front of the book:-
- Je dédie ce livre au rocher d'hospitalité et de liberté, à ce coin de vieille terre normande où vit le noble petit peuple de la mer, à l'île de Guernesey, sévère et douce, mon asile actuel, mon tombeau probable.
-
- (I dedicate this book to the rock of hospitality and freedom, in the corner of the ancient Norman lands where the noble little people of the sea live, to the island of Guernsey, harsh and sweet, my current refuge, my likely resting place.)
Publishing history
The novel was first published in Brussels in 1866 (Hugo was in exile from France). An English translation quickly appeared in New York later that year, under the title The Toilers of the Sea. A UK edition followed in 1887, with Ward Lock publishing Sir G Campbell's translation under the title Workers of the Seahttp://catalog.bl.uk, followed by an 1896 RoutledgeRoutledge
Routledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
edition under the title Toilers of the Sea.
Hugo had originally intended his essay L'Archipel de la Manche (The Archipelago of the [English] Channel) as an introduction to this novel, although it was not published until 1883, and the two have only been published together in the 20th century.
Film adaptations
There have been five film adaptations of the novel http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=toilers+of+the+sea:- Toilers of the Sea (1914 film) - director unknown (silent)
- Toilers of the Sea (1915 film) - director unknown (silent)
- Toilers of the Sea (1923 film) - director Roy William NeillRoy William NeillRoy William Neill was a film director best known today for directing several of the Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, made between 1943 and 1946 and released by Universal Studios....
(silent) - Toilers of the Sea (1936 film) - director Selwyn JepsonSelwyn JepsonSelwyn Jepson was a British author, of the Far House, Farther Common, Liss, Hants.His father was the mystery/detective author Edgar Alfred Jepson , his mother was Frieda Holmes, daughter of the musician Henry Holmes. His sister Margaret , also a novelist, was the mother of Fay Weldon.Jepson was...
- Sea Devils (1953 film)Sea DevilsSea Devils is a 1953 British-American historical adventure film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Rock Hudson and Yvonne De Carlo. The story was adapted from the novel Les Travailleurs de la mer by Victor Hugo...
- director Raoul WalshRaoul WalshRaoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh...