Les Miserables (Vintage Classics)

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On one level Les Miserables is a detective story in which the relentless Inspector Javert obsessively pursues the escaped convict Jean Valjean. On another level, it is a drama of crime, punishment and rehabilitation set against a panoramic description of French society after Napoleon. But above all, Hugo’s masterpiece is about the metaphysical struggle between good and evil in the soul of every man. It is a plea for social justice, political enlightenment and personal charity.From the Hardcover edition.

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Victor-Marie Hugo was born on 26 February 1802 at Besancon, where his father, an officer under Napoleon, was stationed. After his parents separated in 1812, Hugo lived in Paris with his mother and brothers. At twenty he married Adele Foucher and published his first poetry collection. Hugo was elected to the Academie Francaise in 1841. The accidental death two years later of his eldest daughter and her husband devastated him and marked the end of his first literary period. By then politics had become central to his life. Though he was a Royalist in his youth, his views became increasingly liberal after the July revolution of 1830. He initially supported Louis Napoleon, but turned against him after being denied a role in government following the coup d'etat of 1851 and was forced into exile in Brussels and Jersey. After the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, Hugo returned to France and was re-elected to the National Assembly, and then to the Senate. Hugo is celebrated as a politician, a social campaigner, a poet and a novelist. His most famous works include Notre Dame de Paris (1831) and Les Miserables (1862). Victor Hugo died on 22 May 1885 and his state funeral was attended by thousands of mourners. Julie Rose lives in Sydney and is the highly regarded translator of more than a dozen works, including an acclaimed version of Racine's Phedre as well as works by Paul Virilio, Jacques Ranciere, Chantal Thomas, and many others.