The Story of Adèle H.
1975 film by François Truffaut
The Story of Adèle H. (French: L'Histoire d'Adèle H.) is a 1975 French historical drama film directed by François Truffaut, and starring Isabelle Adjani, Bruce Robinson, Sylvia Marriott, Joseph Blatchley and Ivry Gitlis. Written by Truffaut, Jean Gruault and Suzanne Schiffman, the film is about Adèle Hugo, the daughter of writer Victor Hugo, whose obsessive unrequited love for a military officer leads to her downfall. The story is based on Adèle Hugo's diaries. Filming took place on location in Guernsey and Senegal.
Adjani received critical acclaim for her performance as Hugo, garnering an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role, at the time making her the youngest Best Actress nominee ever at age 20. The Story of Adèle H. also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Award for Best Film, and the Cartagena Film Festival Special Critics Award.
Plot
In 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, British troops are stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, carefully checking European passengers disembarking from foreign ships. Adèle Hugo, the second daughter of French writer Victor Hugo, makes it through and takes a carriage into Halifax. Traveling under the pseudonym Miss Lewly, Adèle finds accommodations at a boarding house run by Mr. and Mrs.
The public source identifies “The Story of Adèle H.” as 1975 film by François Truffaut. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Story, Adèle and film.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q920218. The Library of Congress control number is no97043899. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975 and 1863.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Story of Adèle H.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.