Helen Keller

 NAME Helen Adams Keller. (1) , (2)

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Helen Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist, and lecturer who became deaf and blind as an infant, yet learned to read, write, and speak, and went on to become the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She spent her adult life campaigning for the blind and deaf, for women's suffrage, for workers' rights, and for world peace, becoming one of the most admired women of the twentieth century. (3)

BIRTH Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. (4)

FAMILY BACKGROUND Her father, Arthur H. Keller, was a former Confederate Army captain, a farmer, and the editor of the local newspaper, the North Alabamian. 

Her mother, Kate Adams Keller, was an educated woman from Memphis and Arthur's second wife. 

Helen was the elder of their two daughters, and she also had two older half-brothers from her father's first marriage. (4) 

CHILDHOOD At just 19 months old, Helen was struck by an illness, described by doctors at the time as "brain fever" but now thought to have probably been scarlet fever or meningitis, which left her permanently blind and deaf. Unable to see, hear, or speak intelligibly, she developed her own crude system of home signs to communicate with her family, and grew increasingly frustrated and prone to violent tantrums as she struggled to make herself understood. 

Her worried parents eventually sought help from inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children, and he directed them to the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, which sent a young teacher named Anne Sullivan to Tuscumbia in March 1887. (5) , (6)

EDUCATION Anne Sullivan, herself partially blind, arrived when Helen was seven years old and remained her teacher and lifelong companion for the next 49 years. Sullivan's breakthrough came within weeks, when she spelled the word "water" into Helen's hand while cool water ran over it at the pump, and Helen suddenly grasped that everything had a name. 

Helen went on to learn to read Braille, to write with a specially made typewriter, and to lip-read by placing her fingers on the lips and throat of a speaker while the words were simultaneously spelled into her hand; she also learned to speak, though her voice remained difficult for strangers to understand. 

She studied at the Perkins Institution, the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York, and the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, before entering Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1900, with Sullivan interpreting lectures for her by spelling them into her hand.

Keller in the Radcliffe College yearbook, 1904

In 1904 Helen graduated cum laude from Radcliffe, becoming the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. (6) , (7)

CAREER RECORD 1902-1903 Helen published her first two books, The Story of My Life and Optimism, launching her career as a writer even before she finished college.

1904 She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College and began a lifelong career as an author and public lecturer, campaigning for education and support for the blind and deaf.

1913 She began touring on the lecture circuit, often with an interpreter relaying her speech, raising money and awareness chiefly on behalf of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB).

1920 She became a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union alongside Roger Baldwin and Jane Addams.

1924 She joined the newly formed American Foundation for the Blind as its chief fundraiser and spokeswoman, a role she held for the rest of her working life, touring the United States and eventually 35 countries.

1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.  (8)

APPEARANCE Anne Sullivan described the young Helen as "large, strong, and ruddy," with a well-formed, vigorous body, a fine head, and a large, finely shaped mouth, though one eye protruded slightly more than the other, a legacy of her childhood illness. 

As an adult, biographer Dorothy Herrmann described Keller as having "regular, almost perfect features and blue eyes that were the colour of the sky," a clear complexion, and long chestnut hair; her natural eyes were later surgically replaced with glass ones to correct the protrusion. (9) , (10)

Keller c. 1904

FASHION Keller was noted in her lecture and vaudeville years for dressing elegantly for her public appearances, often in fashionable gowns suited to the formal occasions and grand halls in which she spoke, reflecting the celebrity status she held as one of the most photographed women of her era. (9)

CHARACTER Those who knew Keller described her as remarkably determined, curious, and warm, with an unpredictable, alternately animated and still, facial expression that reflected her thoughts vividly since she could not see or mirror others' faces. 

She combined a fierce independence and stubbornness, evident from her childhood tantrums onward, with deep compassion for the suffering of others, particularly the poor and disabled, which drove her lifelong activism. (9) , (11)

SPEAKING VOICE Helen learned to produce audible speech under the tutelage of Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston, but her voice remained flat, guttural, and difficult for unfamiliar listeners to understand throughout her life, so she typically relied on an interpreter, often Anne Sullivan or later her secretary Polly Thomson, to repeat her words clearly during public lectures. (6) , (11)

SENSE OF HUMOUR Keller had a lively wit that surprised people who expected only solemnity from her; Mark Twain, one of her closest friends, refused to pity her and once quipped to a companion that "blindness is an exciting business," a remark Keller relished. She also playfully teased Twain for his pessimism, showing she was comfortable trading jokes even with a literary giant twice her age. (12)

RELATIONSHIPS Keller's closest and most enduring relationship was with her teacher, Anne Sullivan, who lived with and worked alongside her for 49 years until Sullivan's death in 1936, after which Keller's secretary Polly Thomson became her constant companion. 

Helen Keller in 1899 with lifelong companion and teacher Anne Sullivan. 

In 1916, while Sullivan was recuperating from illness, Keller fell in love with her temporary secretary, Peter Fagan, and the couple secretly obtained a marriage license in Boston, but the engagement became public in the press and Keller's mother forcibly separated them, ending the relationship; Keller later wrote about the episode as "a little island of joy surrounded by dark waters." She never married and had no children. (13) , (14)

MONEY AND FAME Keller achieved international celebrity from childhood onward, and her fame helped her raise substantial sums for disability causes; wealthy admirer Henry Huttleston Rogers, prompted by Mark Twain, funded her education, and she later established a two-million-dollar endowment fund for the American Foundation for the Blind. 

Despite mixing with millionaires, royalty, and presidents, Keller herself lived modestly and devoted much of her adult income and effort to fundraising for others rather than personal wealth. (3) (15)

FOOD AND DRINK Keller had famously simple tastes, reportedly loving hot dogs with mustard so much that her secretary Polly Thomson once banned them from the house to stop her eating little else, and she was fond of martinis in her later years, enjoying a couple of stiff drinks most evenings. 

As a child, she recalled happily helping in the kitchen, making ice cream and licking stirring spoons during holiday preparations. (16)

MUSIC AND ARTS Though she could not hear music, Keller described experiencing it through vibration, placing her hands on a piano or radio speaker to feel the rhythm and tone, and she wrote appreciatively about the sensation of "feeling" an orchestra play. 

She was also involved in the arts through cinema, starring as herself in the 1919 silent film Deliverance, a dramatized account of her life story. (6) , (11)

LITERATURE Keller was a prolific author who wrote 12 to 14 books along with hundreds of speeches and essays, on subjects ranging from her own life to animals and Mahatma Gandhi. Her best-known work, the 1903 autobiography The Story of My Life, chronicled her childhood and education with Anne Sullivan and became an international bestseller; other titles included The World I Live In (1908), Out of the Dark (1913), My Religion (1927), Midstream: My Later Life (1929), and Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy (1955). (6) , (17)

NATURE Keller wrote often about experiencing the natural world through touch and smell, describing the textures of leaves, flowers, and running water with great sensory precision in her books, and she found particular joy in gardens and the outdoors throughout her life. Her celebrated 1908 essay collection The World I Live In devoted whole chapters to how she perceived nature without sight or hearing. (6) 

Keller holding a magnolia, c. 1920

PETS Keller was a devoted, lifelong dog lover who almost always kept a dog by her side, including a pit bull named Sir Thomas. 

During a 1937 visit to Akita Prefecture in Japan, she was so moved by the story of the loyal Akita dog Hachiko that she expressed a wish to own one, and she was given a puppy named Kamikaze-Go, becoming the first person to bring the Akita breed to the United States; when Kamikaze died of distemper months later, the Japanese government sent her his brother, Kenzan-Go, whom she nicknamed Go-Go. (18) , (19)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Beyond her extensive travel and public speaking, Keller enjoyed activities such as horseback riding, rowing, tandem bicycling, and swimming, engaging in physical recreation with characteristic enthusiasm despite her disabilities. 

She also kept up an active correspondence and enjoyed exploring gardens by touch and smell as a favored pastime. (6)

SCIENCE AND MATHS Keller's own education involved close engagement with the mechanics of speech and hearing through her association with Alexander Graham Bell, whose scientific interest in deafness first brought him into her family's life, and she maintained a curiosity about technology and invention throughout their decades-long friendship. She did not pursue science as a profession but wrote and lectured on how technology and medicine could reduce preventable blindness. (11) , (20)

ACTIVISM At the beginning of the 20th century, blindness was not a subject that women’s magazines were especially keen to discuss. This was partly because a surprisingly large proportion of blindness cases were associated with venereal disease, which was then considered a matter best dealt with by lowering one’s voice and pretending it wasn’t happening. Into this rather awkward silence stepped Helen Keller.

After graduating from Radcliffe College in 1904, Keller became one of the most energetic advocates for people with disabilities of her age. She worked for the American Foundation for the Blind for many years, travelling throughout the United States and visiting dozens of countries abroad. She became an internationally celebrated author and speaker, which is remarkable enough when you consider that she could neither see nor hear. The rest of us can barely manage a presentation when the projector refuses to cooperate.

Keller’s interests extended far beyond blindness and deafness. She was a suffragist, pacifist, Christian socialist and supporter of birth control, and she was an outspoken critic of President Woodrow Wilson. She campaigned for better conditions for disabled people and spoke publicly about the discrimination faced by deaf people. In 1915, she and George A. Kessler founded Helen Keller International, an organisation devoted to research and programmes involving vision, health and nutrition.

She was also deeply troubled by racial injustice. In 1916, Keller donated money to the NAACP, saying she was ashamed by the un-Christian treatment of Black Americans in the American South. This was at a time when racial segregation and discrimination were not merely widespread but woven into the machinery of American life.

In 1920, Keller helped establish the American Civil Liberties Union. She continued travelling extensively with her teacher and companion Anne Sullivan, visiting more than 40 countries and making several trips to Japan, where she became particularly popular. She met every American president from Grover Cleveland through Lyndon B. Johnson and counted among her friends such figures as Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain.

Keller and Twain had more in common than a fondness for extraordinary company. Both were regarded as political radicals and sympathised with left-wing causes, which was not necessarily the safest way to endear oneself to respectable society in their day.

Keller was particularly concerned with poverty and the opportunities—or lack of them—available to poor children. She believed that poverty could crush people before they had a chance to discover what they were capable of. Keller acknowledged that her own achievements had been helped by the advantages of her birth and upbringing, and she recognised that such opportunities were not equally available to everyone.

Her point was a simple but rather inconvenient one: success is not merely a matter of determination. Sometimes people also need somebody to give them a chance. Keller had been fortunate enough to receive that chance, and she spent much of the rest of her life trying to make sure that others did too.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Keller became a committed follower of the Swedish theologian Emanuel Swedenborg, whose mystical Christian theology she credited with giving her spiritual comfort and meaning, and she wrote about her faith in the 1927 book My Religion. Her worldview combined this spiritual conviction with a strong belief in social and economic justice as a moral imperative. (17)

POLITICS Keller was a committed socialist and radical activist who joined the Socialist Party of America in 1909, wrote that she loved "the red flag and what it symbolizes," and argued that the industrial conditions causing poverty were also a leading cause of blindness among the poor. 

She was a suffragist, a supporter of birth control, an opponent of child labor, and a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920, and in 1916 she donated to the NAACP and had her support published in its journal, The Crisis. (20) , (21)

SCANDAL Keller's brief secret engagement to Peter Fagan in 1916 became a public sensation after newspapers reported his application for a marriage license, embarrassing her family and prompting her mother to swiftly end the relationship and issue a public denial on Keller's behalf. 

Separately, her outspoken socialism and associations with Communist-linked front organizations during the 1930s and 1940s drew unfavorable press attention and made her a subject of ongoing government scrutiny. (13) , (22)

MILITARY RECORD Keller had no military service of her own, though her father, Arthur H. Keller, served as a captain in the Confederate Army before her birth. 

During the Second World War, Keller toured military hospitals extensively to comfort soldiers who had been blinded or otherwise disabled in combat. (5) , (8)

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Aside from the illness at 19 months that left her deaf and blind, Keller enjoyed generally robust health for most of her life, being described by Anne Sullivan as strong, vigorous, and never ill in the years following her early illness. 

Her health declined later in life, and she suffered a series of strokes beginning in 1961 that curtailed her public activities and confined her to her home for her final years. (9) , (23)

HOMES Keller was born and raised at Ivy Green, her family's estate in Tuscumbia, Alabama, before later years spent largely in Massachusetts and New York during her education.

Keller's birthplace in Tuscumbia, Alabama By Calstanhope 

 In 1936, following Anne Sullivan's death, she settled permanently in Easton, Connecticut, at a home she named Arcan Ridge, where she lived for the rest of her life. (23) 

TRAVEL As the American Foundation for the Blind's chief representative, Keller toured extensively on its behalf, ultimately traveling to around 35 to 39 countries across five continents to advocate for the blind and deaf and to raise funds. 

In 1937 she toured Japan, and in 1948 General Douglas MacArthur sent her there again as America's first postwar Goodwill Ambassador; she also represented the United States informally on other overseas missions and met numerous foreign heads of state. (3)

DEATH Helen Keller suffered a series of strokes in 1961, which ended her public career, and she spent her final years at Arcan Ridge in Easton, Connecticut. She died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, a few weeks before her eighty-eighth birthday.  (2)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Keller starred as herself in the 1919 silent film Deliverance, a dramatized retelling of her life. Her story was later immortalized in The Miracle Worker, first a 1957 television play, then a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1959 Broadway play, and finally a celebrated 1962 film starring Anne Bancroft as Anne Sullivan and Patty Duke as young Helen, both of whom won Academy Awards for their performances. (2) 

ACHIEVEMENTS Keller became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904. 

She co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union,

Keller introduced the Akita dog breed to the United States

In 1964 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, for her lifetime of advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities.

Her birth date, June 27, is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in Pennsylvania.

Sources: (1) Wikipedia (2) Britannica (3) Perkins School for the Blind (4) American Foundation for the Blind: Biography (5) National Women's History Museum (6) National Portrait Gallery (7) Perkins School for the Blind FAQ (8) American Foundation for the Blind: Chronology (9) UPenn Digital Library: The Story of My Life (10) Hazlitt (11) Grunge (12) SignDNA (13) American Printing House (14) American Foundation for the Blind: Chronology of Her Life (15) Britannica 100 Women (16) The Takeout (17) Encyclopedia.com (18) Akita Club of America (19) Wikipedia: Hachiko (20) Ragged Edge Magazine (21) Utne Reader (22) 24/7 Wall St. (23) The Trouble Begins at Eight (Mark Twain Project blog) 

Danny Kaye

NAME Danny Kaye, born David Daniel Kaminsky. He performed early in his career under the stage names Danny Kolbin and Red (of the duo "Red and Blackie") before settling on "Danny Kaye" in 1933. (1), (2)

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Danny Kaye was an American actor, singer, dancer and comedian best remembered for his manic pantomime, rapid-fire "patter songs" and tongue-twisting routines. He starred in classic films including White Christmas (1954) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), as well as Hans Christian Andersen (1952) and The Court Jester (1956). Off screen he was UNICEF's first celebrity Goodwill Ambassador, once flying a jet to 65 cities in five days to publicise the charity. (3)

BIRTH He was born David Daniel Kaminsky in Brooklyn, New York, on January 18, 1911, though for most of his life he and the public believed the year to be 1913 — a discrepancy his daughter Dena only corrected publicly in 2013. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND Kaye was the youngest of three sons born to Jacob and Clara (née Nemerovsky) Kaminsky, Russian Jewish immigrants from Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro, Ukraine). His parents and two older brothers, Larry and Mac, had emigrated two years before his birth, making Danny the only son born on American soil. His father worked as a tailor after arriving in New York. 

CHILDHOOD Kaye grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn, attending Public School 149, which was later renamed in his honour, where he entertained classmates with songs and jokes. 

His mother died when he was in his early teens, a loss that hit him hard, and not long afterward he and a friend, Louis Eilson, ran away to Florida, singing for money to get by. 

As a boy he dreamed of becoming a surgeon, but his family could not afford to send him to medical school. 

EDUCATION He attended Public School 149 in Brooklyn and later entered Thomas Jefferson High School, though he dropped out before graduating to pursue a career in entertainment and odd jobs. 

He received no formal musical education or dramatic training, learning to perform and sing entirely by ear and practice (4)

 His real education came on the "Borscht Belt" — the Catskill Mountain resorts — where he learned his craft as a tummler, or all-purpose entertainer, from around age 13 or 14. (5),

CAREER RECORD 1933 Kaye adopted the stage name "Danny Kaye" while touring with the vaudeville dance act the Three Terpsichoreans, later joining the revue La Vie Parée on a six-month tour of Asia, where his pantomime style developed out of the language barrier.

1937 He signed with New York's Educational Pictures, appearing in a series of low-budget two-reel comedy shorts as a fast-talking Russian character, ending when the studio folded in 1938.

1939 His Broadway debut came in The Straw Hat Revue, followed in 1941 by his star-making turn in Lady in the Dark, in which his rendition of "Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians)" — naming more than 50 Russian composers in under 40 seconds — made him a sensation.

1944 He made his feature film debut in Samuel Goldwyn's Up in Arms, beginning a run of hit Technicolor musical comedies through the 1940s and 1950s, including Wonder Man (1945), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), Hans Christian Andersen (1952), White Christmas (1954) and The Court Jester (1956).

1954 He became UNICEF's first Goodwill Ambassador, a role he held until his death, combining humanitarian touring with entertainment specials such as The Secret Life of Danny Kaye (1956).

1963-1967 He hosted the top-rated variety series The Danny Kaye Show on CBS, which won four Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award.

1976 He owned a share of the newly formed Seattle Mariners baseball franchise alongside business partner Lester Smith, a stake he held until 1985. 

APPEARANCE Kaye was tall and lean, standing around 5 feet 11 inches, with a rubbery, expressive face that could shift instantly from manic energy to gentle warmth. He had naturally red hair, which Samuel Goldwyn had bleached blond for his early Technicolor films because it photographed better, and a prominent nose that Goldwyn once wanted him to have altered — a request Kaye refused. (5)

Danny Kaye

FASHION On screen Kaye's look varied wildly with his roles, from the medieval motley of The Court Jester to the sharp suits of Phil Davis in White Christmas, but off screen he favoured comfortable, casual clothing suited to his hobbies of flying and cooking rather than Hollywood glamour. Contemporary profiles note he was more at home in an apron in his custom Chinese kitchen than in formal attire. (6)

CHARACTER Those who knew him described Kaye as restlessly energetic and endlessly curious, a man who threw himself completely into whatever interested him, whether cooking, flying or conducting an orchestra. 

He could also be private and complex; his wife and closest collaborator, Sylvia Fine, once described a hidden alter-ego called "Kaplan," a pompous, illiterate character Kaye performed only for family and friends, sometimes staying "on Kaplan for two hours." (1)

SPEAKING VOICE Kaye's speaking and singing voice was famous for its elastic range and speed, capable of rattling off tongue-twisting lyrics at breakneck pace without seemingly pausing for breath, most notably in "Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians)." 

Despite claiming he could not read music, he was said to have perfect pitch, and his vocal delivery could pivot in a moment from gibberish scat and mock-foreign dialects to tender, sincere balladry. 

SENSE OF HUMOUR His comedy relied on physical pantomime, absurd facial contortions and verbal dexterity rather than scripted one-liners, a style he first developed while performing for non-English-speaking audiences in Asia in the 1930s. 

He also delighted in private, semi-improvised comic routines, such as the "Kaplan" character, and was known for genuinely improvising much of his stage material even though his wife wrote the bulk of his songs. 

RELATIONSHIPS Kaye married Sylvia Fine, a pianist, composer and lyricist he met at a 1939 audition, on January 3, 1940, in Fort Lauderdale; she went on to write many of his signature songs and manage much of his career. 

The marriage endured until his death, aside from a separation in 1947 and 1948 during which Kaye was involved with actress Eve Arden, and the couple had one daughter, Dena, born in 1946, who became a journalist. 

Sylvia and Kaye, 1945

MONEY AND FAME By the mid-1940s Kaye was one of Hollywood's biggest box-office draws, headlining a run of lucrative Technicolor musical comedies for Samuel Goldwyn and later Paramount, and he expanded his fortune through business ventures including Kaye-Smith Enterprises, a chain of Pacific Northwest radio stations he co-founded with Lester Smith in 1958. 

His fame extended into humanitarian circles through UNICEF, and in 1976 his business group paid $6.2 million for the American League expansion franchise that became the Seattle Mariners. (7)

FOOD AND DRINK Kaye was a celebrated amateur chef with a particular passion for Chinese cuisine, studying for years under San Francisco restaurateurs Johnny Kan and Cecilia Chiang and eventually installing a custom Chinese kitchen — complete with a multi-burner wok stove and circulating ice water cooling system — in the alley behind his Beverly Hills home, which he nicknamed "Ying's Thing." 

He hosted lavish multi-course dinners there for guests including Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant and Luciano Pavarotti, and chefs who trained him signed him an honorary "Meilleur Ouvrier de France" diploma, though he was not eligible for the official French professional title. (6), (8)

MOVIE CAREER Danny Kaye made his name in a run of hugely successful Technicolor comedies during the 1940s and 1950s, a period when Hollywood seemed to believe that every mild-mannered fellow with a funny voice and an alarming tendency to get into trouble deserved his own Technicolor epic. Kaye was particularly good at playing ordinary dreamers who found themselves deposited, usually with little warning and considerably less preparation, into extraordinary situations.

His film career took off with Up in Arms (1944), followed by Wonder Man (1945) and The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), which established him as one of Hollywood's most distinctive comic performers. In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), he played the timid Walter Mitty, whose spectacular daydreams are rather more exciting than his actual life. The Inspector General (1949) gave him another chance to turn confusion into an art form, while Hans Christian Andersen (1952) allowed him to combine comedy, music and dance in a much more sentimental setting.

Then came White Christmas (1954), in which Kaye teamed with Bing Crosby in one of the most enduring musical comedies of the era, and The Court Jester (1955), arguably his great comic showcase. As the hapless Hubert Hawkins, Kaye rattled through tongue-twisters, disguises, swordplay and general medieval mayhem with the sort of confidence that suggests he had been born knowing precisely how to make a fool of himself in several languages.

Kaye's appeal went beyond slapstick. He was an accomplished singer, dancer and mimic, and his ability to switch rapidly between characters, accents and absurd verbal routines made him unusually versatile. His films often gave him elaborate comic set pieces, but he could also carry a musical number or a more tender scene without making it feel like a detour from the comedy. By the end of the 1950s, he had become one of America's best-known entertainers, equally at home in movies, on television and on the stage.

MUSIC AND ARTS Beyond acting, Kaye had a substantial recording career, scoring hits with songs including "Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)" and "The Woody Woodpecker Song" with the Andrews Sisters, and "Wonderful Copenhagen" and "Thumbelina" from Hans Christian Andersen. 

He frequently guest-conducted elite orchestras—including the New York Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra—combining serious musical direction with comedic antics like conducting with flyswatters or flyswatter batons. He did this despite being unable to read music, learning entire scores by ear and raising more than five million dollars for musicians' pension funds through his comic charity concerts. (4)

LITERATURE He loved reading classic literature, children's fables, and biographies, and he authored and narrated several children's storybook records, including collections of Hans Christian Andersen tales.

Kaye brought several literary and folkloric figures to the screen, most notably playing the title role in Hans Christian Andersen (1952) and Walter Mitty, the daydreaming clerk from James Thurber's short story, in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947). He also appeared as Captain Hook in a 1976 television musical version of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan and voiced Geppetto from Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio the same year. (1), (18)

NATURE Danny Kaye’s best-documented connection with the outdoors was aviation. A licensed pilot and Learjet-qualified flyer, he travelled widely on behalf of UNICEF and flew a jet to 65 cities in the United States and Canada in five days to publicise its Halloween fundraising campaign. (4)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Alongside cooking and flying, Kaye was a lifelong, passionate baseball fan devoted to the Brooklyn (later Los Angeles) Dodgers, possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of the game and reputedly excelling as an amateur second baseman. He recorded the novelty hit "D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh, Really? No, O'Malley!)" during the 1962 pennant race and later became a part-owner of the Seattle Mariners. (7)

He was also an enthusiastic golfer before shifting his energy toward flying in 1959. 

SCIENCE AND MATHS Kaye's boyhood ambition had been to become a surgeon, and in adulthood he was honoured as an honorary member of both the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Pediatrics in recognition of his charitable work and interest in medicine. He maintained a fascination with medicine and surgical procedures, often observing complex surgeries in operating rooms through his friendships with leading surgeons.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Proud of his Jewish heritage, Kaye frequently visited Israel on solidarity missions and visited wounded soldiers in hospitals during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, also conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra several times for charity. Beyond this expression of cultural and religious identity, Kaye practiced a secular humanist worldview centered on global goodwill, tolerance, and direct humanitarian action for those in need. (3)

POLITICS Danny Kaye was a Democrat who supported Adlai Stevenson’s 1952 presidential campaign. He also joined the Committee for the First Amendment, a Hollywood organisation formed to oppose the House Un-American Activities Committee and defend freedom of expression. Most of his public service, however, was non-partisan: from 1954 until his death he served as UNICEF’s first Goodwill Ambassador, advocating for children regardless of race, nationality, colour or faith. (9)

Kaye's humanitarian profile brought him into governmental circles; he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in June 1987, accepted on his behalf by his daughter Dena. 

SCANDAL He maintained a remarkably clean public record throughout his long career, avoiding major personal scandals or tabloid controversy.

MILITARY RECORD Kaye did not serve in the armed forces during World War II, but he was active in supporting the war effort through entertainment, performing extensively for American servicemen at home and abroad in USO-style tours during the early-to-mid 1940s. He continued touring military bases and hospitals during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. (3)

Danny Kaye on USO tour at Sasebo, Japan, October 25, 1945.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Danny Kaye had a back problem that led to his being classified 4-F and therefore rejected for wartime military service during World War II. 

He continued performing through injuries, including finishing a run of the musical Two by Two on stage in a wheelchair after tearing a leg ligament. 

In 1983, Kaye underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery, during which he received a blood transfusion that left him infected with hepatitis C, a fact not diagnosed until years later. He largely recovered and continued public appearances, but the hepatitis caused intestinal bleeding that led to his final hospitalisation in 1987. (10) (11)

HOMES Kaye lived for many years in Beverly Hills, California, in a home famous for the elaborate Chinese kitchen and eight-seat restaurant he built in the alley behind it, nicknamed "Ying's Thing." He was devoted enough to it that, while filming The Madwoman of Chaillot in France, he once flew home simply to eat dinner there. (6), (8)

TRAVEL Kaye travelled extensively throughout his life, first touring Asia with a vaudeville troupe in 1934 — an experience that shaped his pantomime style — and later logging roughly 50,000 miles across ten countries during a celebrated UNICEF tour documented in The Secret Life of Danny Kaye (1956). 

As an accomplished pilot, he once flew a Learjet to 65 cities in the United States and Canada in five days to promote UNICEF's Halloween "Trick-or-Treat" campaign, a feat that earned him an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. (4)

DEATH Danny Kaye died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in the early hours of March 3, 1987, at the age of 76. The cause was heart failure and internal bleeding brought on by hepatitis C, contracted from the contaminated blood transfusion he received during his 1983 bypass surgery. 

At his request there was no funeral service; his body was cremated and his ashes interred in the foundation of a bench at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, decorated with engravings of a baseball, an aircraft, a piano and a chef's toque. (10), (12)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Beyond his classic motion pictures, he was a regular guest on major television specials, talk shows, and news programs, as well as the subject of numerous documentaries regarding his humanitarian efforts for UNICEF. 

ACHIEVEMENTS Awarded two Academy Awards (an Honorary Oscar in 1955 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1982). 

Won an Academy Award for Assignment Children (1955), a short documentary highlighting UNICEF's global health initiatives. 

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. 

Named the Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 1986. 

Honored as UNICEF's first Goodwill Ambassador in 1954, serving faithfully in the post for 33 years until his death. 

Set a Guinness World Record by piloting a private Learjet to 65 cities in the United States and Canada in five days to greet volunteers and promote the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign.

Sources: (1) Wikipedia (2) Spotify Artist Bio (3) UNICEF USA (4) Jewish Virtual Library (5) IMDb (6) Silver Scenes Blog (7) Baseball-Reference (8) Forever A Pleasure (9) Library of Congress (10) New York Times (11) Los Angeles Times (12) Find a Grave

Sophia Jex-Blake

NAME  Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake. 

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Sophia Jex-Blake was an English physician, teacher, and feminist who led the campaign to secure women's access to university medical education in Britain. She was the first practising female doctor in Scotland and one of the first in the United Kingdom. She is famous for her central role in the Surgeons' Hall riot of 1870, for founding two medical schools for women — in London and Edinburgh — and for her contribution to the passage of the Medical Act 1876, which enabled women to receive medical degrees and licences to practice in Britain. (1) 

BIRTH Born January 21, 1840, at 3 Croft Place, Hastings, Sussex, England. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND Sophia was the youngest child of Thomas Jex-Blake, a retired lawyer and proctor of Doctors' Commons, and his wife Mary (née Cubitt), daughter of Thomas Cubitt of Honing Hall, Norfolk. On both sides the family descended from well-known Norfolk gentry families, and the family background was that of comfortable, upper-middle-class Evangelical Anglicanism. 

Her father was described as a "proud lover" of her mother to the day of his death, and the household maintained a quiet ethic of charitable giving — it was said that "the Jex-Blakes' carriage was as fine as any in the place, but there was always a poor person in it." 

Her brother Thomas William Jex-Blake (1832–1915) became headmaster of Rugby School and later Dean of Wells Cathedral; among her nieces were Katharine Jex-Blake, Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, and Henrietta Jex-Blake, Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. (2) 

CHILDHOOD Sophia was described from infancy as "vital to the finger-tips" with "a pair of great luminous eyes, too mature for a baby." She was, by her own cheerful admission, a "terrible pickle" as a child — overflowing with energy, willful, and temperamentally volcanic, her outbursts of passion repeatedly alarming her quietly devout parents. Her governess in 1848 wrote warmly of her as "a dear child, shewing daily advancement in her studies," but noted her "native wildness." 

As a small child Sophia devoted enormous creative energy to constructing an imaginary island nation called "Sackermena and her Isles," producing maps, constitutions, laws, and poetry for her invented kingdom — a fantasy that her biographer Margaret Todd considered the clearest early sign of Sophia's extraordinary organizing and governing instincts. She later recalled: "No one ever had a happier childhood than I." (2)

EDUCATION Sophia was home-educated until the age of eight and attended various private schools in southern England. 

In 1858, Sophia enrolled at Queen's College, London — a pioneering institution for the higher education of women — despite the objections of her parents. 

In 1859, while still a student, she was appointed mathematics tutor at the college, though her father refused her permission to accept a salary for the work, since he did not expect his daughter to earn a living. She remained there until 1861. 

In 1865 Sophia travelled to the United States to study educational methods, visiting numerous schools and colleges and publishing her findings as A Visit to Some American Schools and Colleges. While in Boston she worked at the New England Hospital for Women and Children under Dr. Lucy Ellen Sewall, with whom she formed a lifelong friendship, and it was this experience that crystallized her vocation to become a doctor. 

In 1868 Sophia began a regular course of medical study under Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell at Blackwell's new Women's Medical College in New York, before returning to Britain determined to qualify as a doctor. 

Jex-Blake's application for matriculation. Centre for Research Collections University of Edinburgh

She was eventually awarded an MD by the University of Berne in January 1877, and in the same year qualified as Licentiate of the King's and Queen's College of Physicians of Ireland (LKQCPI), becoming the third woman registered with the General Medical Council.  (3)

CAREER RECORD 1858–1861: Studied and worked as mathematics tutor at Queen's College, London; refused salary by her father.

1865-1868: Spent several years in the United States studying and observing medical education, including work with pioneering female physician Elizabeth Blackwell. 

1869: Applied to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. After initial resistance, she gathered other women applicants and became leader of what later became known as the Edinburgh Seven.

1869-1873: Studied medicine in Edinburgh while fighting institutional discrimination, hostile students, and opposition from some professors. 

1870: Survived the infamous Surgeons' Hall Riot, when male students attempted to prevent the women from entering an examination. The incident generated widespread public sympathy for the women's cause. 

1873: Lost a legal challenge against the University of Edinburgh after the courts ruled that the university had been wrong to admit women in the first place. The women were denied degrees.

1874: Helped establish the London School of Medicine for Women, Britain's first medical school for women. 

1877: Obtained an MD degree from the University of Bern in Switzerland and qualified through the King's and Queen's College of Physicians of Ireland, becoming one of Britain's first licensed female doctors.

1878: Returned to Edinburgh and opened a medical practice, becoming the first registered female doctor in Scotland. She also founded the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, which later became Bruntsfield Hospital. 

1886: Founded the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women and served as its dean. 

1899: Retired from medical practice and educational work.

APPEARANCE Surviving photographs from the 1890s show a woman with strong, determined features and serious eyes, typically unsmiling in the manner of Victorian formal portraiture

A portrait painted by Samuel Laurence when she was approximately 25 shows a composed and direct young woman. Laurence famously abandoned a crayon drawing of her, declaring "I must get you in oils or not at all" — suggesting she possessed a strong and difficult-to-capture physical presence. (2)

Sophia Jex-Blake Aged 25 Portrait by Samuel Laurence

FASHION Jex-Blake dressed respectably and conservatively in the manner expected of a professional Victorian woman. Her clothing projected seriousness and competence rather than fashionability. She generally wore dark dresses, high collars, and practical hairstyles suitable for a physician and campaigner.

CHARACTER Jex-Blake was widely described — by friends and opponents alike — as determined, combative, and formidably energetic. Her biographer Todd summarised her as "able, energetic, determined, a born combatant and leader." 

She was also, by many accounts including her own, tempestuous and abrasive; her quarrel with students at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women became sufficiently bitter to end in a court case. 

At the same time she was characterised as generous and unselfish in pursuit of the wider cause of women's education, and possessed of deep personal loyalties. James Stansfeld MP, who closely associated himself with her campaign, wrote: "Dr Sophia Jex-Blake has made the greatest of all contributions to the end attained." (2)

SPEAKING VOICE Jex-Blake was a confident and apparently effective public speaker. She was notably the first woman since Jenny Geddes to speak in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, when she addressed a crowded meeting during the Royal Infirmary campaign, reportedly to a reception of considerable "hubbub." (2)

SENSE OF HUMOUR Her childhood letters reveal a sharp, self-aware wit alongside her fiery temperament; she wrote to her brother as a small child: "I must say I think you very impertinent, however I condescend to write to you."

Sophia herself showed a dry, combative wit in her correspondence — she described her fellow campaigners as the Septem contra Edinam (the Seven against Edinburgh), after the Seven against Thebes. 

When asked by a friend if she had been a terrible pickle at school, she replied simply: "Specs so," and changed the subject. (2)

RELATIONSHIPS Jex-Blake never married. Her most important emotional relationship was with Dr. Lucy Ellen Sewall of Boston, with whom she formed a deep and lifelong friendship from 1865 onwards; the two women maintained an extensive correspondence throughout Jex-Blake's campaigns. 

Later in life she is assumed to have been in a romantic relationship with Dr. Margaret Todd, a physician and novelist. On Jex-Blake's retirement in 1899, the two women moved together to Windydene, Mark Cross, Rotherfield, Sussex, where they lived until Sophia's death in 1912. Todd subsequently wrote her biography, The Life of Dr Sophia Jex-Blake (1918). (2) 

Dr Margaret Todd

MONEY AND FAME Jex-Blake came from a comfortably wealthy background — her father was a proctor of Doctors' Commons and the family maintained a carriage and a gracious home in the manner of the Norfolk gentry. However, she chose a life of considerable financial struggle in pursuit of her goals; she was refused a salary for her tutoring work by her father, and her legal battles cost enormously. 

A public subscription raised £1,000 to help cover the costs of an early libel action brought against her. She received a gift of a further £1,000 from a supporter, Walter Thomson, during the Edinburgh campaign. 

As Jex-Blake's cause advanced she became a public figure; her battles made national newspaper headlines and she addressed a major meeting at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, chaired by Lord Shaftesbury in London. Her fame, however, remained that of a campaigner and reformer rather than a celebrity. (2)

FOOD AND DRINK In retirement at Windydene, she is recorded as taking an interest in fruit-growing and dairy work on her property. No other personal preferences in food or drink are recorded. (2)

MUSIC AND ARTS Her household in Edinburgh at Bruntsfield Lodge was described as a meeting place for former students, colleagues, writers, and acquaintances from around the world, suggesting a cultivated social environment.

LITERATURE Jex-Blake was a prolific writer of letters, essays, and polemical works. She published A Visit to Some American Schools and Colleges, and the influential campaigning work Medical Women (1872). She edited and contributed to The Englishwoman's Year Book. Her biographer Todd describes her as a "born chronicler" who from childhood strove compulsively to record her doings and dreams on paper. 

In retirement she was a reader; her biographer notes her "love of poetry" and her books, though specific titles or authors are not recorded. (2) 

Image by Perplexity

NATURE As a child Jex-Blake had greatly enjoyed outdoor scrambling on the rocks of Hastings, and in later life she was known for driving tours in the Scottish countryside.

In retirement at Windydene, Rotherfield, she took up fruit-growing and maintained a dairy, and the house was set in country surroundings she evidently loved. (2)

PETS The chapter "Driving Tours. Animal Friends" in Todd's biography suggests she had a notable fondness for animals, though specific pets are not named in available sources. (2)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Jex-Blake was an energetic walker in childhood, fond of scrambling on the Hastings rocks. In later life she enjoyed driving tours in the Scottish countryside. In retirement she engaged in fruit-growing and dairy work. (2)

SCIENCE AND MATHS Jex-Blake showed marked aptitude for mathematics from an early age, becoming mathematics tutor at Queen's College, London, while still a student there at the age of nineteen. She won her Queen's College certificate "with great credit." 

Her commitment to science as a vocation led her, after initial hesitation among careers including law and the ministry, to choose medicine. Her essay "Medicine as a Profession for Women" (1869) argued rationally that no objective evidence existed for women's intellectual inferiority to men. (2) 

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Jex-Blake was raised in a household of earnest, "fine-flower" Evangelical Anglicanism that she found in some ways cramping, though she was baptised at St. Clement's, Hastings, and retained a personal religious faith throughout her life. 

As a child she wrote prayers recording private religious struggles. In adulthood she distanced herself from what she felt was the restrictive religiosity of her upbringing but retained what her biographer describes as a broad, humane religious attitude. Her biographer records that in later life Jex-Blake had a clearly defined "religious attitude" that resisted easy categorisation. (2)

POLITICS Jex-Blake was a committed advocate for women's rights across several fronts. She contributed to Josephine Butler's 1869 collection Women's Work and Women's Culture, arguing for women's access to education and professional life. She worked closely with the Liberal politician James Stansfeld MP, who championed the women's medical cause in Parliament, and she directly lobbied Home Secretaries and Cabinet members. 

Jex-Blake campaigned successfully for the first election of women on the Edinburgh School Board. She supported women's suffrage, though her primary political energies were directed at educational and professional equality. Her biographer records that in retirement she maintained a strong interest in all public questions relating to women, and expressed distrust of German militarism in the years before World War I. (2)

SCANDAL Jex-Blake was frequently involved in public controversies. The bitter dispute over women's admission to Edinburgh University generated national headlines, lawsuits, and public arguments.

In 1889, students at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women successfully sued Jex-Blake for damages in an acrimonious court case arising from her conduct as a teacher and administrator. The case was reputationally damaging, and several of the students, including Grace Ross Cadell and her sister Georgina, thereafter transferred to the rival Edinburgh College of Medicine for Women founded under the direction of Elsie Inglis. The episode revealed the limits of Jex-Blake's skill as a collegiate leader. (2)

MEDICAL CAREER Sophia Jex-Blake's medical career was one of those epic Victorian struggles that make you wonder how anything ever got accomplished in the nineteenth century. Becoming a doctor required not merely intelligence, perseverance, and years of study, but also the ability to withstand legal defeats, public humiliation, institutional obstruction, and the occasional flying sheep.

Jex-Blake's first serious encounter with medicine came in Boston in the mid-1860s, where she worked at the New England Hospital for Women and Children under Dr. Lucy Sewall. The experience convinced her that medicine was not merely an interesting possibility but her calling. Unfortunately, the world was less convinced. Harvard Medical School declined to admit her because she was a woman, a rationale that today sounds embarrassing but at the time was delivered with complete confidence by otherwise educated people.

She intended to continue her training at Elizabeth Blackwell's Women's Medical College in New York, but her plans were interrupted by the death of her father in 1868, which brought her back to England.

There she discovered that British medical schools were united on one point: women need not apply. Since Scottish universities enjoyed a reputation for intellectual independence, she turned her attention to the University of Edinburgh. The authorities initially rejected her application on the grounds that "the interest of one lady" did not justify making special arrangements. This was a wonderfully Victorian way of saying no while sounding administrative about it.

Jex-Blake responded by advertising for allies. Six women joined her cause — Isabel Thorne, Edith Pechey, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans, Mary Anderson, and Emily Bovell. Together they became known as the Edinburgh Seven and, in 1869, secured admission to the University of Edinburgh, becoming the first women to matriculate at a British university.

The experiment did not go down well with everyone.

On November 18, 1870, the Edinburgh Seven arrived at Surgeons' Hall to sit an anatomy examination. Instead of the usual examination-day atmosphere of nervous silence and frantic revision, they found themselves confronted by a crowd of several hundred hostile students and spectators. Mud, rubbish, and insults were thrown. Someone released a sheep into the building. One suspects the sheep had little idea what side it was supposed to be on.

The women sat their examination regardless, displaying considerably more composure than many of their critics. Yet courage was not enough. The university eventually refused to award them degrees, and in 1873 Scotland's highest civil court ruled that they should never have been admitted in the first place.

It was a defeat, but one that generated enormous public sympathy. The women lost the case but began winning the argument.

Jex-Blake had not spent years battling institutions merely to surrender at the first judicial setback. If Britain would not qualify her, she would go elsewhere.

In January 1877 she earned an MD from the University of Berne in Switzerland. Later that year she travelled to Dublin and passed the examinations of the King's and Queen's College of Physicians of Ireland. This made her one of the first women entered on the British medical register.

The door that had been slammed repeatedly in her face had finally been opened, though only after she had marched around the back of the building and found another entrance.

In 1878 Jex-Blake returned triumphantly to Edinburgh and established her practice at 4 Manor Place. In doing so she became the first practising female doctor in Scotland.

Almost immediately she opened a dispensary in Grove Street, providing affordable medical care to working-class women. What began as a modest clinic expanded into the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, Scotland's first hospital staffed entirely by women. The institution eventually developed into Bruntsfield Hospital, a remarkable achievement considering it originated from a woman whom the medical establishment had once declared unsuitable even to sit examinations.

Jex-Blake understood that individual success was not enough. If women were to become doctors in significant numbers, they needed institutions willing to train them.

In 1874 she helped establish the London School of Medicine for Women, the first medical school in Britain dedicated to female students. Twelve years later she founded the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women.

Characteristically, however, she could never entirely escape controversy. A dispute with students culminated in a court case and the creation of a rival school under the leadership of her former pupil Elsie Inglis. Even among allies, Jex-Blake's formidable personality could generate sparks.

The cause for which she fought eventually prevailed. The University of Edinburgh finally allowed women to sit medical degree examinations in 1892, and from 1894 women could graduate fully in medicine.

Jex-Blake retired around 1899 and spent her final years in Sussex. By then the barriers she had spent decades battering down were beginning to crumble. Today plaques, memorials, and institutional histories commemorate her achievements, but perhaps her greatest monument is the simple fact that women studying medicine in Britain no longer have to fight riots, lawsuits, and university authorities merely to enter a lecture hall.

Sophia Jex-Blake did not just become a doctor. She helped change the definition of who could be one.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS As a child Jex-Blake suffered from "indifferent health" during her school years, and her parents' letters express regular concern about her physical wellbeing. In January 1847, her mother wrote urging the seven-year-old Sophia to pray for spiritual strength, and also warned her not to let her father talk too much on walks. 

After her mother's death in 1881, Jex-Blake suffered "a period of depressed reclusiveness." (3)

HOMES Born at 3 Croft Place, Hastings, Sussex. She lived for a period with Octavia Hill's family in London. 

After qualifying as a doctor she leased a house at 4 Manor Place, Edinburgh (1878). She subsequently lived and conducted her practice for 16 years at Bruntsfield Lodge, Whitehouse Loan, Edinburgh. 

On retirement in 1899 she moved to Windydene, Mark Cross, Rotherfield, Sussex, where she lived with Dr. Margaret Todd until her death. (3)

TRAVEL In 1865, Jex-Blake made an extensive tour of the United States, visiting schools and colleges in Boston, New York, Niagara, Oberlin, Hillsdale, St Louis, and Antioch. She worked in Boston and New York before returning to Britain in 1868. 

She spent time in the United States studying medicine, later traveled to Switzerland to earn her MD from the University of Bern, and visited Ireland to obtain her medical licence

DEATH Jex-Blake died at Windydene, Mark Cross, Rotherfield, Sussex, on January 7, 1912, aged 71. She is buried at St Denys Church, Rotherfield. (4)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA In 2021 Scottish playwright Frances Poet wrote Sophia, a dramatic work based on the experiences of Jex-Blake and the Edinburgh Seven.

In 2020, Bellfield Brewery in Edinburgh launched an India pale ale named after her. 

An Historic Scotland plaque was unveiled in 2015 to commemorate the Surgeons' Hall Riot. 

Historic Scotland commemorative plaque to the Edinburgh Seven By Spillerjzy 

ACHIEVEMENTS First practising female doctor in Scotland, and one of the first in the United Kingdom. 

Led the Edinburgh Seven — the first women to matriculate at a British university — in their campaign to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh (1869). 

Co-founded the London School of Medicine for Women (1874), the first medical school in Britain to train women. 

Contributed centrally to the passage of the Medical Act 1876 (the Russell Gurney Enabling Act), which permitted women in Britain to receive a medical degree and a licence to practice medicine and surgery. 

Founded the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women (1885) — Scotland's first hospital for women staffed entirely by women, later known as Bruntsfield Hospital. 

Founded the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women (1886). 

Her decades of campaigning helped bring about the University of Edinburgh's decision in 1892–1894 to admit women to degree examinations in medicine. 

Sources: (1) Wikipedia – Sophia Jex-Blake (2) Margaret Todd, *The Life of Sophia Jex-Blake* (Project Gutenberg via Mirror Service) (3) National Archives – Sophia Jex-Blake, Pioneer of Women's Medicine (4) Encyclopaedia Britannica – Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake (5) University of Edinburgh – Sophia Jex-Blake Plaque

Victor Hugo

NAME Victor Marie Hugo. He acquired several nicknames during his lifetime, including "Ocean Man" — a term he himself used to describe Shakespeare, which was later turned back on Hugo to capture the vast, turbulent scale of his own genius. He was also known as "Horizon Man" and "Century Man." (1)

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Victor Hugo was the preeminent figure of the French Romantic movement. He is internationally celebrated for his massive novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris). Beyond his prose, he was a prolific poet, playwright, and a dedicated political activist who campaigned for social justice, the abolition of the death penalty, and the preservation of Gothic architecture.

BIRTH Born February 26, 1802, in Besançon, in eastern France.

FAMILY BACKGROUND He was the youngest (third) son of Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1774–1828) and Sophie Trébuchet (1772–1821). 

His father was an army officer who rose to become a general in Napoleon's army — a freethinking republican who considered Napoleon a hero. 

His mother was the daughter of a sea captain, a staunch royalist, Catholic, and follower of Rousseau. 

Hugo's parents were fundamentally incompatible: his father was an atheist and ardent republican; his mother was loyal to the deposed Bourbon dynasty. 

The Hugo family came from Nancy in Lorraine, where Hugo's grandfather was a wood merchant. (2)

Hugo was deeply class-conscious about his origins. Mortified to be descended from commoners, he "adopted" more illustrious Hugo ancestors and designed a coat of arms for himself bearing the words "Ego Hugo." (3) 

In 1810, his father was made Count Hugo de Cogolludo y Sigüenza by the King of Spain; Hugo later styled himself Viscount, and in 1845 was formally appointed pair de France as Vicomte Victor Hugo. 

CHILDHOOD His mother and father did not get on, and most of Victor's early years were spent in Paris, where his mother preferred to live. (3) 

Since his father was an army officer, the family moved frequently from posting to posting — to Elba, Naples, and Madrid. In 1811 the boys were sent to school at the Real Colegio de San Antonio de Abad in Madrid. Back in Paris, Victor and his brother Eugène were placed in the Pension Cordier boarding school in 1815, while also attending lectures at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. 

As an adolescent, he contributed essays to the Conservateur Littéraire (The Literary Curator) and wrote a tragedy at the age of 14. (3) 

In 1817, he entered a poem for a competition organized by the Académie Française, and the judges refused to believe the author was only fifteen. 

EDUCATION  Hugo attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris and studied law between 1815 and 1818, though he never committed himself to legal practice. (4) 

His mother encouraged him to pursue literature instead, and Hugo and his brothers founded a periodical, Le Conservateur Littéraire, in 1819.

CAREER RECORD 1822 Published his first collection of poetry, Odes et poésies diverses. Its success earned him a royal pension from Louis XVIII.

1827 Published the play Cromwell. Its preface became the manifesto of the Romantic movement, making Hugo a leader of the literary romanticists.

1830 His verse play Hernani premiered. It shattered traditional French dramatic rules, leading to the "Battle of Hernani"—literal fisticuffs in the theater between Classicists and Romantics.

1831 Published The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The novel’s success triggered a national movement to restore the neglected cathedral and preserve Gothic architecture.

1841 Elected to the Académie Française after several previous rejections.

1848 Elected to the Parliament as a conservative but soon broke with them to advocate for the poor and the abolition of the death penalty.

1851-1870 Lived in exile in Brussels, Jersey, and Guernsey after opposing Napoleon III’s coup. During this time, Hugo wrote his most famous political pamphlets and completed his masterpiece, Les Misérables (1862).

1870 Returned to France following the fall of the Second Empire; he was elected to the National Assembly and later the Senate. 

APPEARANCE Though of somewhat short stature, Hugo was a strikingly attractive man both in youth and old age. He had a high forehead and penetrating eyes that seemed simultaneously austere and engaging. (5)

Hugo by Jean Alaux, 1825

 Early portraits show an intense intellectual; by the 1860s photographs reveal he had transformed himself into a sage-like figure, complete with a full white beard.

He was one of the most portrayed men of his time — depicted in drawings, paintings, photographs, and sculptures throughout his long life — and was said to project an extraordinarily commanding personality. (5)

FASHION Hugo’s fashion was often functional but had its quirks; most famously, when he was behind on a deadline, he would have his servants take away all his clothes to force him to stay indoors and write in his underwear or a gray knitted shawl. (3)

CHARACTER Hugo was ambitious, prodigiously energetic, and driven by an almost messianic sense of his own importance. He described himself, in his final years, as "not one of these sweet-tempered old men — I am still exasperated and violent." 

He was a passionate humanitarian and reformer, yet also vain, self-mythologising, and sexually voracious. He was a superb conversationalist, with a reputation for charm and ease in company even into old age. (5) 

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche included him in his list of "impossible people," describing him as "a lighthouse in a sea of absurdity." (3)

SPEAKING VOICE Hugo had a "fine persuasive bass" voice, and was renowned as an excellent conversationalist. (5)

A visitor who met the elderly Hugo in his Paris home noted that his voice retained "all the freshness and flexible modulations of youth — not a trace of huskiness or weariness." He was also heard from the next room laughing heartily with his grandchildren. (6) 

SENSE OF HUMOUR Hugo had a dry and self-aware wit. When his publishers, eager to know how his latest novel was progressing, sent him a single-character telegram reading "?", Hugo replied with equal economy: "!" 

When one of his grandsons caught him in the arms of a young laundress at the age of seventy, Hugo's reaction was: "Look, little George — this is what they call genius." (3)

RELATIONSHIPS In 1822, aged 21, Hugo married his childhood sweetheart Adèle Foucher. His brother Eugène, secretly in love with Adèle, went mad when Hugo married her and died at Charenton Asylum on February 20, 1837. (3)

Adèle Hugo as a young woman, by Louis Boulanger

They had five children: Léopold (born July 16, died October 10, 1823); Léopoldine (born August 28, 1824 – died September 4, 1843); Charles (born November 4, 1826 – died March 13, 1871); François-Victor (born October 28, 1828 – died December 26, 1873); and Adèle (born July 28, 1830 – died April 21, 1915). 

Hugo's eldest daughter Léopoldine drowned on September 4, 1843, when her boat capsized on the River Seine at Villequier. Her wet, heavy skirts pulled her down; her young husband died trying to save her. Hugo was travelling with his mistress in the south of France and first learned of his daughter's death from a newspaper in a café. He dedicated numerous poems to her memory, notably À Villequier from his 1856 collection Les Contemplations. (3)

Hugo was not faithful to Adèle. From February 1833 until her death in 1883, the actress Juliette Drouet devoted her entire life to him, acting as his secretary and travelling companion, writing some 20,000 letters expressing her passion and jealousy. Hugo never married her even after his wife Adèle died in 1868. 

Hugo gave free rein to his libido until a few weeks before his death, systematically recording his casual affairs in a private code — using Latin abbreviations, Spanish homophones and analogies — to ensure secrecy, much as Samuel Pepys had done in his diaries. On the day Hugo died, all the brothels in Paris reportedly closed in mourning.

Within a brief period in the early 1870s, Hugo suffered a mild stroke, his daughter Adèle was interned in an insane asylum, and his two sons died. His wife Adèle had died in 1868, and his faithful mistress Juliette Drouet died in 1883, just two years before his own death. 

MONEY AND FAME Hugo's first poetry collection earned him a royal pension from Louis XVIII at the age of twenty. 

He was briefly on the edge of bankruptcy until the success of Hernani in 1830 rescued his finances and confirmed his position as the undisputed leader of French Romanticism. (3) 

Hugo became the most popular writer of his time: on his eightieth birthday, one of the largest parades in French history was held in his honour in Paris. 

Letters addressed to him needed only the label "To Mister Victor Hugo, In his avenue, Paris." 

Hugo left 50,000 francs to the poor in his will. 

FOOD AND DRINK During his years in exile on Guernsey, Hugo adopted a strict daily routine: he rose at sunrise and consumed a breakfast of two raw eggs and a cup of cold coffee before beginning work. (7) 

He was reportedly a prodigious and indiscriminate eater — the writer Théophile Gautier described him making extraordinary mixtures on his plate combining chops, haricot beans, beef in tomato sauce, ham omelette, and café au lait laced with vinegar, mustard, and Brie — which he swallowed rapidly and at length. (8) 

Hugo was highly temperate with alcohol: he never drank a drop of spirits nor smoked a cigar in his life. He drank sweetened wine in the same way others would drink water, and was entirely indifferent to whether it was fine Bordeaux or cheap table wine. (8) 

After meals he reportedly chewed lumps of charcoal to combat what he considered the "corruptions and miasmas" caused in his stomach by his unconventional eating habits. (9)

MUSIC AND ARTS Although Hugo's many talents did not include exceptional musical ability, he had an enormous impact on the music world through the inspiration his works provided. Well over a thousand musical compositions have been based on his writings, including more than one hundred operas, among them Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia (1833), Verdi's Rigoletto (1851) and Ernani (1844), and Ponchielli's La Gioconda (1876). He wrote the libretto for Louise Bertin's opera La Esmeralda (1836), based on The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. 

Hugo himself particularly enjoyed the music of Gluck, Mozart, Weber, and Meyerbeer. He greatly admired Beethoven and, unusually for his time, appreciated earlier composers such as Palestrina and Monteverdi. 

Two famous musicians were his friends: Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt, the latter of whom played Beethoven in Hugo's home. Hugo joked that, thanks to Liszt's piano lessons, he had learned to play a favourite song — with one finger. 

He was also on friendly terms with Frédéric Chopin, and attended his funeral in 1849. Hugo introduced Chopin to the novelist George Sand, who became Chopin's lover. 

He had low esteem for Richard Wagner, whom he described as "a man of talent coupled with imbecility." (2)

Hugo produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, working only on paper in dark brown or black pen-and-ink wash. Originally a casual hobby, drawing became his exclusive creative outlet during the period 1848–1851 when he stopped writing to devote himself to politics. (3)

WRITING CAREER  If industriousness were a competitive sport, Victor Hugo would have retired undefeated sometime around 1830 and spent the rest of his life giving motivational talks to lesser mortals. Instead, he carried on for more than sixty years, producing poetry, novels, plays and political journalism at a rate that suggests either divine inspiration or a very aggressive relationship with ink. By the end, he was not just France’s most celebrated 19th-century writer, but also—one suspects—the reason French printers developed wrist problems.

He first caused a stir as a teenager when he entered a poem into a competition run by the Académie française in 1817. The judges, assuming no fifteen-year-old could possibly write anything coherent, decided the entry must be fraudulent. Hugo, who would go on to produce enough writing to fill 45 volumes, must have found this early vote of no confidence faintly amusing. By twenty, he had published Odes et poésies diverses (1822) and secured a royal pension from Louis XVIII—a nice arrangement that allowed him to continue writing at a pace that would alarm modern word processors.

Over the next decade or so he produced a succession of poetry collections with titles of increasing atmospheric ambition—Les Orientales (1829), Les Feuilles d’automne (1831), Les Chants du crépuscule (1835), Les Voix intérieures (1837), and Les Rayons et les ombres (1840). By this point he had established himself as the sort of poet critics describe as “lyric and elegiac,” which is a polite way of saying he could make you feel things whether you wanted to or not.

Hugo did not confine himself to verse. In 1827, his play Cromwell came with a preface that effectively kicked the door in on French theatrical tradition. It argued that drama should mix the sublime with the grotesque—rather like serving soufflé with pickles—and became the founding document of French Romanticism. Three years later, Hernani (1830) caused such uproar at its premiere that audience members reportedly settled aesthetic disagreements with their fists, proving that nothing inflames public opinion quite like irregular verse. His later play Ruy Blas (1838) is generally considered his dramatic high point, though mercifully with fewer punch-ups.

Then came Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), written in a burst of productivity so intense that Hugo supposedly locked away his clothes to prevent himself from going outside—a strategy that, while effective, has yet to catch on in most writing workshops. Published on January 14, 1831, it became an instant European sensation and had the unexpected side effect of shaming Paris into restoring the neglected Notre-Dame Cathedral, thereby saving one of the world’s great buildings through the simple expedient of making it famous again.

His social conscience found sharper expression in Le Dernier Jour d’un condamné (1829), a fierce attack on capital punishment that later influenced writers such as Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Albert Camus—which is rather like saying your pamphlet inspired three entirely separate literary planets. His shorter work Claude Gueux (1834), based on a real execution, would later serve as a kind of rehearsal for his most famous novel.

That novel, of course, was Les Misérables (1862), which Hugo had been planning since the 1830s and took seventeen years to complete—roughly the time it takes most people to learn the violin badly. By the time it was published, following his political exile in 1851, anticipation was so high that the first Paris edition sold out within 24 hours. Hugo, not known for false modesty, had already written to his publisher predicting it would be a crowning achievement. History, irritatingly for the modest, agreed with him.

Exile proved productive in other ways too. While living on Guernsey, he wrote Les Travailleurs de la Mer (1866), featuring a memorable struggle with a giant squid—because if you’re going to write about island life, you might as well include cephalopods. This was followed by L’Homme qui rit (1869), a dark English-set tale, and Quatre-vingt-treize (1874), a novel about the Reign of Terror that many now rank alongside his more famous works.

Meanwhile, he continued to produce poetry of daunting scale and intensity. Les Châtiments (1853) took aim at Napoleon III with the subtlety of a cannon, while Les Contemplations (1856) included deeply personal elegies to his daughter Léopoldine. Then there was La Légende des siècles (1859), an epic poetic sweep through human history which in France is regarded as a towering masterpiece, though elsewhere it is more often admired in theory than actually read—rather like long instruction manuals.

As for his working habits, Hugo wrote at a speed that suggests he may have had several additional arms not mentioned in the historical record—up to 100 lines of verse or 20 pages of prose a day. When inspiration lagged, he resorted to the aforementioned tactic of having his clothes removed, ensuring that distraction was kept to an absolute minimum. It is a method that would undoubtedly improve productivity in many professions, though possibly at the cost of workplace morale.

In total, his output inspired well over a thousand musical compositions, including more than a hundred operas. This means that even if you have never read Hugo, there is a fair chance you have encountered him in song—proof that, in the end, he did not so much write literature as create a small, self-sustaining cultural ecosystem.

LITERATURE His literary output was gargantuan. He sought to capture the entirety of human experience, from the historical depths of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame to the social outcry of Les Misérables.

Illustration by Émile Bayard from the original edition of Les Misérables (1862)

NATURE Hugo's novel Les Travailleurs de la Mer (Toilers of the Sea, 1866), dedicated to the island of Guernsey where he spent fifteen years in exile, features an epic battle between a man and a giant squid. The Guernsey word for squid — pieuvre — entered the French language as a result of its use in the book. 

Hugo's letters show him closely attuned to the landscapes of his exile — the Channel Island coastline and his view across the sea to France are recurring images in his poetry and correspondence. (10)

PETS Hugo had a cat called Chanoine (The Canon). He had originally named it Gavroche (after the street urchin in Les Misérables), but renamed it because it was so idle. He also had a cat called Mouche, French for "fly" — the insect. (3)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Hugo was an obsessive and prolific draughtsman. He produced over 4,000 drawings, experimenting with pen and ink, washes, and occasionally blotting — creating dramatic, visionary landscapes and grotesque imagery that anticipated Surrealism. 

He was also deeply interested in interior decoration — he renovated Hauteville House in Guernsey entirely according to his own eccentric vision, combining Chinese porcelain, Japanese lacquerwork, East Asian tapestries, and heavy oak panelling. He reportedly said he had "missed his true vocation" and was "born to be a decorator." (11)

SCIENCE AND MATHS As a boy in Naples (1807–1808), Hugo was taught mathematics by Giuseppe de Samuele Cagnazzi, elder brother of the Italian scientist Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi. 

Hugo wrote the preface to a French edition of a scientific work, and his novel Les Travailleurs de la Mer reflects a serious interest in marine biology and the natural sciences. 

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Hugo's religious views changed radically across his life. Under his mother's influence he began as a practicing Catholic; he then became non-practicing and increasingly anti-clerical. During his exile he participated in séances and spiritism. In his later years he settled into a rationalist deism similar to Voltaire's. When a census-taker asked him in 1872 whether he was Catholic, he replied: "No. A Freethinker." 

Despite his anti-clericalism, Hugo believed in life after death and prayed every morning and night. When his sons Charles and François-Victor died, he insisted they be buried without a crucifix or priest, and made the same stipulation for his own funeral. Yet he left among his last words: "I believe in God." 

He counted 740 attacks on Les Misérables in the Catholic press, and several of his works appeared on the Church's Index of Forbidden Books. 

POLITICS After the death of his daughter Léopoldine in 1843, Hugo entered politics and became a member of the Paris chamber, fighting for left-wing causes. In 1845 he was appointed a peer of France by King Louis-Philippe, where he spoke against the death penalty and social injustice, and in favour of freedom of the press. 

In 1848, Hugo was elected to the National Assembly as a conservative; the following year he broke with the conservatives in a noted speech calling for the end of misery and poverty, universal suffrage, and free education for all children. 

Portrait as member of the National Assembly of the Second Republic, 1848

Hugo participated in the 1848 Paris insurrection, helping to smash barricades. When Napoleon III seized power in 1851 establishing an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor and fled to Brussels, then the Channel Islands. While in exile he published his political pamphlets Napoléon le Petit and Histoire d'un Crime, which were banned in France but had a strong impact. (3)

Although Napoleon III offered a general amnesty to all political exiles in 1859, Hugo declined, unwilling to curtail his criticism. He returned only in 1870 when the Third Republic was proclaimed.  He was elected to the National Assembly and the Senate, but his final phase of political life was regarded as a failure — he was a maverick who achieved little in the Senate. (3)

Hugo was a passionate advocate for the creation of a United States of Europe. At the International Peace Congress in Paris in 1849, he declared that the nations of the continent would one day be blended into "a superior unity... a European fraternity." He also campaigned against slavery, writing to abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman in 1851, and pleading with the US government to spare the life of John Brown in 1859. 

SCANDAL In 1845 Hugo was caught in flagrante with the married Léonie d'Aunet and escaped a sentence for adultery only by a royal pardon. His mistress was not so lucky — she spent two months in prison and six in a convent. (3) 

MILITARY RECORD Hugo had no personal military service. His father, however, rose to the rank of general in Napoleon's army, and much of Hugo's childhood was spent travelling with the army through Spain, Italy, and Elba. (4) 

Hugo was present in Paris during the Prussian siege of 1870–1871, famously eating animals from the Paris Zoo as food became scarce, recording in his diary that he had been reduced to "eating the unknown." (2)

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Hugo suffered a mild stroke in 1878. He kept to a strict daily regimen during his Guernsey years — rising at sunrise, having a bucket of cold water poured over him, taking two raw eggs and cold coffee for breakfast, then writing through the morning. 

Despite his voracious and idiosyncratic eating habits, he was highly temperate with alcohol — he never drank spirits or smoked in his life. (8) 

HOMES  As a child, Hugo lived at 12 Impasse des Feuillantines in Paris, which he described in later life with great nostalgia. 

After his marriage in 1822 he lived in various Paris apartments. He was given the use of rooms in the Hôtel de Rohan-Guéménée on the Place des Vosges from 1832 to 1848, now preserved as the Maison de Victor Hugo museum. 

Following his exile in 1851, Hugo lived in Brussels briefly, then on the island of Jersey (1852–1855), before settling on the island of Guernsey at Hauteville House in Saint Peter Port from October 1855, where he remained until 1870. (He renovated Hauteville House in an entirely personal style, combining Chinese and Japanese decorative objects with heavy oak panelling and East Asian silks. 

Hugo returned to Paris in 1870 and lived at 50 Avenue Victor-Hugo (now number 124), where he died. 

TRAVEL As the son of a Napoleonic general, Hugo spent stretches of his childhood in Elba, Naples, and Madrid. 

During the 1830s and 1840s he travelled extensively through France, the Rhine Valley, and Spain with Juliette Drouet, many journeys reflected in his travel writing and poetry. 

His nineteen years of exile (1851–1870) took him to Brussels, Jersey, and Guernsey. After returning from Guernsey in 1870 he lived again briefly on the island in 1872–1873, before finally returning to France for the remainder of his life.

DEATH Victor Hugo died of pneumonia on May 22, 1885, at his home at 50 Avenue Victor-Hugo, Paris, aged 83. Two days before he died he left a note with his final words: "To love is to act."

He had requested a pauper's funeral, but by decree of President Jules Grévy was given a state funeral. An honour guard of twelve young poets flanked his coffin, and all the street lamps en route were draped in black crêpe. More than two million people joined his funeral procession from the Arc de Triomphe to the Panthéon — the largest funeral in French history. (3)

Funeral procession of Victor Hugo arriving at the Panthéon By Arnaud 25

He shares a crypt within the Panthéon with Alexandre Dumas and Émile Zola. Most large French towns and cities have a street or square named after him. 

Hugo left five sentences as his last will, including: "I leave 50,000 francs to the poor. I wish to be buried in their hearse. I refuse funeral orations from all Churches. I ask for a prayer to all souls. I believe in God." 

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA The 1923 silent film The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Universal), starring Lon Chaney, was Universal's most successful silent film, grossing over $3 million. The 1939 version starred Charles Laughton, and Disney produced an animated adaptation in 1996. 

Les Misérables has been adapted for film, television, and stage countless times worldwide, including the internationally celebrated stage musical (book by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg), which became London's West End's longest-running musical. 

The story of Hugo's daughter Adèle's obsession with the British army officer Albert Pinson inspired François Truffaut's 1975 biographical film The Story of Adele H., starring Isabelle Adjani. Adjani earned an Academy Award nomination for her role. 

Verdi's opera Rigoletto (1851) is based on Hugo's play Le Roi s'amuse; Ernani (1844) is based on his play of the same name. Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia (1833) also derives from a Hugo play. 

ACHIEVEMENTS Leader of the French Romantic literary movement, transforming French drama and fiction. 

Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) directly inspired the restoration of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and a Europe-wide movement to preserve Gothic architecture. 

Les Misérables (1862) placed the issues of poverty and social injustice on the agenda of the French National Assembly. 

His advocacy against the death penalty influenced the removal of capital punishment from the constitutions of Geneva, Portugal, and Colombia. 

Elected to the Académie française (1841), appointed pair de France (1845), elected to the National Assembly (1848 and 1870), and to the Senate (1876). (2)

A founding member of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, which led directly to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works — the foundation of modern international copyright law. 

Produced more than 4,000 drawings, now recognised as visionary works of art in their own right. (2)

Received one of the greatest tributes ever paid to a living writer when, on his eightieth birthday, a six-hour parade of Parisians filed past his window and the Avenue d'Eylau was renamed Avenue Victor-Hugo in his honour. 

Sources:(1) Encyclopædia Britannica — Victor Hugo (2) Wikipedia — Victor Hugo (3) Encyclopaedia of Trivia — Victor Hugo (4) Biography.com — Victor Hugo (5) EBSCO Research Starters — Victor Hugo (6) (27) Gavroche.org — Two Visits to Victor Hugo (7) Mental Floss — Breakfasts of History's Most Productive People (8) Le Quotidien du Médecin — L'Hygiène de Victor Hugo (9) Lit With Charles — Seance-haver, Live Bat-Mailer, Zoo Animal-Eater: Victor Hugo (10) Reynolds News — Victor Hugo as Political Symbol (11) Royal Academy of Arts — Three Things You Didn't Know About Victor Hugo