This post contains affiliate links (Moshimo Affiliate).
Many readers meet "Les Misérables" first as a musical, with its barricades and its big, sweeping songs. Then they discover that the novel behind it is one of the longest and most ambitious books of the nineteenth century, and they hesitate. That hesitation is understandable, but it is worth getting past. The novel opens with one of the most gripping first sections in literature, and it gives you something no stage version can: room to live alongside its characters for a very long time.
Who wrote it, and when
Victor Hugo was born on 26 February 1802 in Besançon, in eastern France, and died in Paris on 22 May 1885. By the time he began "Les Misérables" he was already a major figure: he had published "Notre-Dame de Paris" (known in English as "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame") in 1831, and in 1841 he was elected to the Académie française.
He was also a man of strong political convictions. When Louis Napoleon, the future Emperor Napoleon III, seized power in 1851, Hugo openly denounced him and left France. He went first to Brussels, then to Jersey, and from October 1855 he settled on the island of Guernsey, where he lived in self-imposed exile until 1870.
The novel had a long gestation. Hugo visited the prison at Toulon and took notes in 1839, but he did not begin writing until 1845. "Les Misérables" was finally published on 31 March 1862, while Hugo was still on Guernsey, by A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Cie in Belgium. It is divided into five volumes: "Fantine," "Cosette," "Marius," "The Idyll in the Rue Plumet and the Epic in the Rue St. Denis," and "Jean Valjean." English translators have offered alternatives such as "The Wretched" or "The Miserable Ones," but in English-speaking countries the book is usually known by its French title. When Hugo died, France gave him a state funeral, and he was buried in the Panthéon.
Where the story begins
In 1815, a man arrives in the small town of Digne. His name is Jean Valjean, and he has just been released after nineteen years in the bagne, the convict prison, at Toulon. Five of those years were for stealing bread to feed his sister's starving family. The other fourteen were added for his repeated attempts to escape.
Freedom turns out to be a cold thing. Valjean must carry a yellow passport that marks him as a former convict, and wherever he shows it, doors close. The innkeepers refuse him a bed, and with nowhere left to go, he prepares to spend the night in the street.
Then the Bishop of Digne, Myriel, takes him in. What happens in that house, and where Valjean goes from there, is the beginning of everything that follows. It is far better to read it than to be told.
What makes it worth reading
The first reason is Jean Valjean himself. Hugo follows the inner life of one man with extraordinary patience: a man who has lost most of his life over a loaf of bread, and who now has to decide what kind of person he will be in a world that has already decided against him. Few characters in fiction are drawn so fully, and by the end of the opening section you will care about him more than you expect.
The second is the sheer scale. The story begins in 1815 and moves toward the June Rebellion of 1832, a two-day uprising by Paris republicans against the monarchy, and Hugo wants to show you the whole society that his characters move through. He famously steps away from the plot to write at length about the Battle of Waterloo, cloistered religious orders, the Paris sewers, criminal slang, and the street children of Paris. By one count, more than a quarter of the novel is given over to these essays. Some readers skim them; others find them the richest part of the book. Either way, they are part of what makes this novel feel like an entire world rather than a single story.
The third is the questions it raises. What is the difference between law and justice? What do we owe to people society has written off? Can a person truly change? Hugo does not hand out tidy answers. He lets his characters live out these questions, and more than a century and a half later, they still feel urgent.
A practical tip: if the length worries you, choose a complete, unabridged translation and treat the first volume, "Fantine," as a novel in its own right. Read through the night in Digne, and you will almost certainly want to go on.
Who will enjoy it
"Les Misérables" is a natural next step for anyone who loves the 1980 musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, or one of the many film and stage adaptations, and wants the full story. It suits readers who enjoy long, immersive novels that follow characters over many years, and anyone interested in nineteenth-century France and the history of Paris. It also rewards readers who like fiction that wrestles with moral questions without turning into a sermon. If you want a book you can live inside for weeks, this is a very good place to start.
Knock on the bishop's door with Jean Valjean, and you will find yourself on one of the great journeys in literature.
Sources
- Wikipedia, "Les Misérables" (first publication date and publisher in Belgium, Hugo in exile on Guernsey at the time, five volumes and their titles, Hugo's 1839 visit to the Toulon prison and start of writing in 1845, story beginning in 1815 and building toward the June Rebellion of 1832, opening setup, the share of the novel given to essays and their topics, the 1980 musical, alternative English titles) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Misérables
- Wikipedia, "June Rebellion" (an anti-monarchist uprising by Paris republicans on 5-6 June 1832) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Rebellion
- Wikipedia, "Victor Hugo" (birth and death dates and places, opposition to Louis Napoleon and Louis Napoleon as the later Napoleon III, exile in Brussels, Jersey and Guernsey from October 1855 to 1870, Notre-Dame de Paris in 1831, election to the Académie française in 1841, state funeral and burial in the Panthéon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo