"No character was ever thrown into such strange relief as Gilliatt... here, indeed, the true position of man in the universe." --Robert Louis Stevenson

The Toilers of the Sea tells the tale of Gilliatt, an outcast fisherman who must rescue one of the engines from a wrecked steamship. If successful, he will win the hand of the shipowner's beautiful daughter, Deruchette. He will brave the harsh rocks, the freezing waves, and even the grasp of a sea monster to prove his worth.

Both a fairytale and richly detailed study of early nineteenth-century Guernsey, The Toilers of the Sea is the oft-forgotten novel that completes Hugo's famed trilogy with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Mis?rables. It is a tribute to the drama of nature and the insignificance of man against it, to solitude in exile, and the light we choose to carry in the darkness.