In the vaulted Gothic towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral lives Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell ringer. Mocked and shunned for his appearance, he is pitied only by Esmeralda, a beautiful Roma street dancer to whom he becomes completely devoted. Esmeralda, however, has also attracted the attention of the sinister archdeacon Claude Frollo, and when she rejects his lecherous approaches, Frollo hatches a plot to destroy her that only Quasimodo can prevent. Victor Hugo's masterpiece brings to life the medieval Paris he loved, and mourns its passing, in one of the greatest historical romances of the nineteenth century.