Victor Hugo (1802–1885) is best known as the author of the novel Les Miserables, but he also wrote several plays, of which Les Burgraves (1843) was the last; it was in fact the failure of this play at the box office that caused Hugo to abandon drama in favour of fiction. The play, a melodrama set in medieval Germany, is now widely regarded as marking the beginning of the end of Romantic theatre on mainland Europe. This edition, which reproduces the French text along with an introduction and notes in English, was first published in 1904. Cambridge University Press is delighted to bring this classic edition back into print.