|
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Awards |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Subjects |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
FRANCE_FICTION JAVERT, INSPECTOR (FICTITIOUS CHARACTER)_FICTION CONTINENTAL EUROPEAN FICTION (FICTIONAL WORKS BY ONE AUTHOR) FICTION_HISTORICAL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Description/Notes |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Victor Hugo's towering novel of Jean Valjean, his unjust imprisonment, and his lifelong flight from a relentless police officer. Introducing one of the most famous characters in literature, Jean Valjean-the noble peasant imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread-Les Miserables (1862) ranks among the greatest novels of all time. In it Victor Hugo takes readers deep into the Parisian underworld, immerses them in a battle between good and evil, and carries them onto the barricades during the uprising of 1832 with a breathtaking realism that is unsurpassed in modern prose. Within his dramatic story are themes that capture the intellect and the emotions: crime and punishment, the relentless persecution of Valjean by Inspector Javert, the desperation of the prostitute Fantine, the amorality of the rogue Thenardier and the universal desire to escape the prisons of our own minds. Les Miserables gave Victor Hugo a canvas upon which he portrayed his criticism of the French political and judicial systems, but the portrait which resulted is larger than life, epic in scope-an extravagant spectacle that dazzles the senses even as it touches the heart. This Signet Classic edition is a new version translated by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee, based on the classic nineteenth-century Charles E. Wilbour translation. Born in 1802, the son of a high officer in Napoleon's army, Victor Hugo spent his childhood against a background of military life in Elba, Corsica, Naples, and Madrid. After the Napoleonic defeat, the Hugo family settled in straitened circumstances in Paris, where, at the age of fifteen, Victor Hugo commenced his literary career with a poem submitted to a contest sponsored by the Academie Francaise. Twenty-four years later, Hugo was elected to the Academie, having helped revolutionize French literature with his poems, plays, and novels. Entering politics, he won a seat in the National Assembly in 1848; but in 1851, he was forced to flee the country because of his opposition to Louis Napoleon. In exile on the Isle of Guernsey, he became a symbol of French resistance to tyranny; upon his return to Paris after the Revolution of 1870, he was greeted as a national hero. He continued to serve in public life and to write with unabated vigor until his death in 1885. He was buried in the Pantheon with every honor the French nation could bestow. Based on C. E. Wilbour's classic translation, this is the only complete, unabridged, pocket size translation available. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Educational Sales Consultant:
Marsha Wipperman (PlanetWyatt)
Marsha Wipperman (PlanetWyatt)
Phone: 
Email:
Email: