Les Miserables: Illustrated

By Victor Hugo and Isabel F. Hapgood (Translator)

Les Misérables is an 1862 French novel by author Victor Hugo that is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century. Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood (1851-1928)

This complete edition contains the full 5 volumes.

The novel focuses on the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption. It examines the nature of law and grace, and expatiates upon the history of France, architecture of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. The story is historical fiction because it contains factual and historic events. Contrary to what some believe, it does not use the French Revolution as a backdrop. The French Revolution took place in the eighteenth century; Les Miserables takes place in the nineteenth. The only "revolution" depicted is the June Rebellion, a student uprising.

Les Misérables is known to many through its numerous stage and screen adaptations, most notably the stage musical of the same name, sometimes abbreviated "Les Mis".

The title is variously translated from the French as The Miserable, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, focusing on the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption. The novel contains many plots, but the main thread is the story of ex-convict, Jean Valjean (known by his prison number, 24601), who becomes a force for good in the world, but cannot escape his dark past.

The novel was originally divided into five volumes, each volume divided into books, and subdivided into chapters, for a total of three hundred sixty-five chapters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BertaBooks
• Release date: Jun 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9788826458779

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is one of the most well-regarded French writers of the nineteenth century. He was a poet, novelist and dramatist, and he is best remembered in English as the author of Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). Hugo was born in Besançon, and became a pivotal figure of the Romantic movement in France, involved in both literature and politics. He founded the literary magazine Conservateur Littéraire in 1819, aged just seventeen, and turned his hand to writing political verse and drama after the accession to the throne of Louis-Philippe in 1830. His literary output was curtailed following the death of his daughter in 1843, but he began a new novel as an outlet for his grief. Completed many years later, this novel became Hugo's most notable work, Les Misérables.