Overview

'They fought hand to hand for every inch of ground, using pistols, swords, fists, at a distance, at close quarters, from above, from below, from everywhere' Les Misérables, 'the wretched', is Victor Hugo's epic novel of redemption, sacrifice, love and suffering. It tells the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean, who has spent nineteen brutal years in chains after stealing a loaf of bread. Saved by an act of Christian charity, he is then offered a chance of happiness when he encounters the downtrodden Fantine and vows to rescue her daughter Cosette - but is constantly pursued by the implacable policeman Javert, who will not let him escape his past. An instant bestseller on publication in 1862, The Wretched weaves together individual stories with real-life historical events to create a rich, imaginative drama of human life. Translated with notes by Christine Donougher With an Introduction by Robert Tombs

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The year's most interesting publication from Penguin Classics was actually The Wretched [...] a new translation by Christine Donougher of the novel we all know as Les Miserables. You may think that 1,300 pages is a huge investment of time when the story is so familiar, but no adaptation can convey the addictive pleasure afforded by Victor Hugo's narrative voice: by turns chatty, crotchety, buoyant and savagely ironical, it's made to seem so contemporary and fresh in Donougher's rendering that the book has all the resonance of the most topical state-of-the-nation novel Telegraph Christine Donougher's seamless and very modern translation of Les Miserables has an astonishing effect in that it reminds readers that Hugo was going further than any Dickensian lament about social conditions ... The Wretched touches the soul Herald Scotland

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Victor Hugo (1802-85), novelist, poet, playwright, and French national icon, is best known for two of today's most popular world classics- Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, as well as other works, including The Toilers of the Sea and The Man Who Laughs. Hugo was elected to the Academie Fran aise in 1841. As a statesman, he was named a Peer of France in 1845. He served in France's National Assemblies in the Second Republic formed after the 1848 revolution, and in 1851 went into self-imposed exile upon the ascendance of Napoleon III, who restored France's government to authoritarian rule. Hugo returned to France in 1870 after the proclamation of the Third Republic. Date- 2013-08-06 Victor Hugo (1802-1885), novelist, poet, and dramatist, is one of the most important of French Romantic writers. Among his best-known works are The Hunchback of Notre Dame(1831) and Les Miserables(1862). INTRODUCER BIOGRAPHY- Jean-Marc Hovasse is Director of Research at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) in Paris. One of France's leading specialists in 19th-century French literature, he is writing a monumental biography of Victor Hugo of which the first two volumes were published in 2001 and 2008. Victor Hugo (1802 - 85) was the most forceful, prolific and versatile of French ni

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