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Hugo's vast 1862 novel begins as Jean Valjean leaves prison after nineteen years, sentenced for stealing bread and for trying to escape. Shunned everywhere…
Hugo's vast 1862 novel begins as Jean Valjean leaves prison after nineteen years, sentenced for stealing bread and for trying to escape. Shunned everywhere, he steals silver from a bishop who gives him his candlesticks as well, and the bishop's mercy changes him: under a new name he becomes a factory owner and mayor, until the relentless Inspector Javert finds him. The book follows his long climb toward goodness, his rescue of Cosette, the daughter of the unhappy Fantine, from the innkeepers who exploit her, the young student Marius, and the barricades of the 1832 uprising in Paris, from which Valjean carries Marius through the sewers.
Context and significance
An epic of poverty, justice and mercy written in exile on the island of Guernsey, it is one of the most read and most adapted novels ever. This translation, of 1887, is by Isabel Hapgood. The poet Hafez Ibrahim's eloquent Arabic version made it a classic for Arab readers too. Hugo's earlier masterpiece is Notre-Dame de Paris.
About the author
Victor Hugo (1802–1885), leading voice of French Romanticism, wrote The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and spent nearly twenty years in exile in the Channel Islands for opposing Napoleon III.
There he finished Les Misérables, the story of the convict Jean Valjean, and Toilers of the Sea; the poet Hafez Ibrahim's Arabic version of Les Misérables made it a favourite of Arab readers.