During Victor Hugos exile on the Channel island of Jersey, between 1853-1855 he and his family conducted almost two hundred séances in which they allegedly received messages and drawings from famous deceased personalities. Besides being a writer and poet, Hugo was also a prolific artist who experimented with automatist and experimental techniques to create thousands of images. Many Surrealist figures, including Andr Breton, Robert Desnos, Andr Masson, and Max Ernst, admired aspects of Hugos art and writing. Comparing Hugos experimental art, sance writings, and attitudes towards psychic material to the art and ideas of Breton and his circle opens up substantial new insights on Victor Hugo as a precursor to Surrealism and on the movements connection to the nineteenth century.