![]() ![]() ![]() Esmerelda is eventually rescued, by her long-lost mother, and barely remembers to blow a parting kiss to the hapless Quasimodo, who concludes the story with the despairing wish, “Would to God I were made of stone.”Īlthough presented in a picture book format, this is obviously a story for older children Wynne-Jones hasn’t concocted any talking gargoyles or mischievous goat antics to soften the grimly romantic tale, and the book is presented as the premiere title in the publisher’s Classic Horror Series. ![]() This Captain Phoebus is clearly just out for a good time with Esmerelda he has no intention of rescuing her with his heroic and faithful love, and he dies of a stab wound at the hand of Dom Frollo rather than surviving to carry Esmerelda off into the sunset. The thwarted love and bitter ironies at the heart of Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris are in this version as well, and Wynne-Jones doesn’t hesitate to keep the villainous Frollo in his original position as Archdeacon of the Cathedral, rather than removing him to a less controversial secular post. This is the year of The Hunchback, and fortunately Tim Wynne-Jones has provided young readers with an astringent version of the Victor Hugo story to contrast the saccharine and confusing mess that the Disney corporation made of it. ![]()
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