Les Misérables

Author: Victor Hugo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: In a bankrupt factory, Jean Valjean steals a loaf of bread and is imprisoned. After his release, he is moved by the benevolence of Bishop Myriel and strives to do good. By chance, he becomes a capitalist and is appointed as the mayor. He is generous and works hard to help the destitute and sick prostitute Fantine. He also buys back and adopts Fantine's daughter, Cosette, from the selfish and cunning Thénardier. However, the police officer Javert relentlessly tracks him down, forcing him to go into hiding and wander from place to place. In the end, he risks his life to rescue the beloved of Cosette, Marius, from the temporary battlefield on the streets, fulfilling the couple's passionate love and Fantine's last wish. This is a vast historical panorama depicting the life of the lower classes in Paris during the turbulent era of the French Revolution: the remote provincial town, the emerging industrial coastal city, the terrifying court, the dark prison, the miserable slums of Paris, the shadowy convents, the horrifying cemeteries, the humble inns in the suburbs, the royalist salons, the bourgeois households, the Latin Quarter where university students gather, the brutal battlefield of Waterloo, the streets filled with barricades, and the sewers where filth and corruption thrive. This book is a "encyclopedia of human suffering," exposing the themes of "poverty making men wretched," "hunger making women fall," and "darkness making children weak." It is Hugo's masterpiece and one of the most brilliant treasures in the world's literary treasury.