Synopses & Reviews
In this story of the trials of the peasant Jean Valjean--unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny, and hounded by his nemesis, the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolent police detective Javert--Victor Hugo achieved the rare imaginative resonance that allows a work of art to transcend its genre.
Les Misérables is at once a tense thriller that contains one of the most compelling chase scenes in literature (a pursuit through the sewers of Paris), an epic portrayal of the 19th-century French citizenry, and a vital drama of the redemption of one human being.
Now Columbia/TriStar and Mandalay Entertainment bring this masterpiece--a longtime favorite on Broadway--to the screen in the grand style of an old-fashioned Hollywood epic with an all-star cast. The film, starring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman and Claire Danes, is sure to be a hit when it opens this spring. Our official Everyman's Library tie-in edition brings Victor Hugo to the Library for the first time.
Synopsis
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
Sensational, dramatic, packed with rich excitement and filled with the sweep and violence of human passions, LES MISERABLES is not only superb adventure but a powerful social document. The story of how the convict Jean-Valjean struggled to escape his past and reaffirm his humanity, in a world brutalized by poverty and ignorance, became the gospel of the poor and the oppressed.
About the Author
Victor Hugo (1802-85), novelist, poet, playwright, and French national icon, is best known for two of todays most popular world classics:
Les Misérables 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 Académie Française in 1841. As a statesman, he was named a Peer of France in 1845. He served in Frances 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 Frances government to authoritarian rule. Hugo returned to France in 1870 after the proclamation of the Third Republic.
Julie Roses acclaimed translations include Alexandre Dumass The Knight of Maison-Rouge and Racines Phèdre, as well as works by Paul Virilio, Jacques Rancière, Chantal Thomas, and many others. She is a recipient of the PEN medallion for translation and the New South Wales Premiers Translation Prize.
Adam Gopnik is the author of Paris to the Moon and Through the Childrens Gate, and editor of the Library of America anthology Americans in Paris. He writes on various subjects for The New Yorker and has recently written introductions to works by Maupassant, Balzac, Proust, and Alain-Fournier.