Victor Hugo
The Toilers of the Sea. In any translation.
Victor Hugo is the greatest of all incorrigible romanticists. Something between a prophet, a charlatan, a rhetorician, and a spoiled child, he believes in God, in democracy, in innocence, in justice, and he has a noble and unqualified devotion to human heroism and the depths of the dangerous sea. He has that arbitrary, maniacal inventive imagination which is very rare except in children - and in spite of his theatrical gestures he has the power of conjuring up scenes of incredible beauty and terror.