The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Wikisource, the free online library

(French: Notre-Dame de Paris) French novel. It is set in 1482 in Paris, in and around the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. The book tells the story of a poor Gypsy girl (La Esmeralda) and a misshapen bell-ringer (Quasimodo) who was raised by the archdeacon (Claude Frollo). The book was written as a statement to preserve the Notre Dame cathedral and not to 'modernize' it, as Hugo was thoroughly against. The enormous popularity of the book in France spurred the nascent historical preservation movement in that country and strongly encouraged Gothic revival architecture.