When Victor Hugo published ‘Les Misérables’ in 1862 it became a huge hit with the public, so it is considered to be his greatest work and one of the jewels of French literature. It is a tale of woe and angst, love, loss and redemption set in France in the early 1800s against a backdrop of revolutionary fervour. The name ‘Les Misérables’ means The
Unfortunate Ones or
The Wretched.
Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, the work follows the fortunes of the convict Jean Valjean, a victim of society who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. A hardened and streetwise criminal upon his release, he eventually softens and reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and mayor of a northern town. Despite this, he is haunted by an impulsive, regretted former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector Javert. Valjean eventually gives himself up for the sake of his adopted daughter, Cosette, and her husband, Marius.
‘Les Misérables’ presents a vast panorama of Parisian society and its underworld, and it contains many famous episodes and passages, among them a chapter on the Battle of Waterloo and the description of Valjean’s rescue of Marius by means of a flight through the sewers of Paris.
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