Hauteville House

Hauteville House was Victor Hugo's home during the fourteen years he spent in exile in Guernsey, from 1856 to 1870. The French novelist bought and decorated the house entirely according to his own eccentric vision — the result is one of the most extraordinary domestic interiors in the British Isles. Every room is different, every surface covered, every detail significant. It is less a house than a self-portrait in stone and timber and fabric.

Hugo wrote Les Misérables, Toilers of the Sea, and much of The Man Who Laughs here. The Guernsey fishermen and the island landscape feature in Toilers of the Sea, his tribute to the place that gave him refuge when Napoleon III expelled him from France. He was reportedly fond of the island, though he never learned English and communicated with locals through intermediaries.

Guided tours run regularly and are essential — the house cannot be visited independently. Book ahead in summer. The tour lasts about an hour and goes through all the main rooms, including Hugo's working study at the top of the house and the remarkable tapestry room.

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Victor Hugo decorated Hauteville House entirely himself over the course of his exile, covering walls, ceilings, and floors with tiles, tapestries, carved wood, mirrors, and embroideries in a style that defied every convention of 19th-century interior design. He worked on the top-floor glass lookout he called the "crystal chamber" — a glazed room with views over the town and sea — where he wrote *Les Misérables* standing at a high desk, every morning, before the rest of the household woke.

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