I believe 'Les Miserables' qualifies as one of, if not the greatest novel of the 19th century, if not of all time. It was published in 1862 approximately seventeen years after Hugo began it in the mid-forties. He was, at that time, the world renowned author of ' Notre-Dame de Paris', a member of the Academy Francaise, and an appointed peer of the realm. After the continental revolutions of 1848, he was elected to the National Assembly. A few years later, when Louis-Napoleon failed to garner the votes to extend his presidency and effectuated a coup-d-etat, Hugo had to leave the country. During a debate, he had referred to Louis as le petit Napoleon and his uncle as le grand Napoleon, thus forever earning Louis' enmity. He fled to Belgium and then to England and settled in Guernsey. As hard as it is to believe, France's great novel was completed on a Channel Island. On the second to last day of 1860, he began to finish the book he had left untouched for a dozen years. He began Part IV with the two days on the barricades in June of 1832, because in June of 1848 he had spent two days on the barricades, not as a revolutionary, but as a supporter of the established order horrified at the excesses of the sans-culottes. It took but six months to take the existing draft, a third of the length of the final novel, and turn it into the finished masterpiece.
In a world prior to copyright laws, he sold to a Belgium firm the right to publish the book in French for 12 years for 300,000 francs. Converted into gold, it was a $3m sale and the richest in history. The manuscript was sold sight unseen. The logistics of publication involving Hugo and his team handwriting, correcting, and re-writing a massive book on an island four sailing days from the printer boggles my 21st century mind. The struggles and complex procedures are incomprehensible. Released over the course of the second quarter of 1862 in five parts, and immediately translated into a handful of approved languages, it sold 100,000 copies virtually overnight. Theatrical productions soon followed and the first film version appeared in 1897. Overall, there have been at least sixty-five screen versions in dozens of languages. As for Victor Hugo, he had vowed never to return to France while Louis-Napoleon was on the throne, and he did not. When the Second Empire fell, he returned immediately. When he was interred in the Pantheon in 1885, two million Parisians turned out.
This book is a delightful romp through 19th century French culture, economics, history, politics, law, banking, manufacturing, society, religion and much much more, written by a professor of French with a fine-tuned appreciation and love of the novel, its author and France itself. "The moral compass of 'Les Miserables' thus spreads far beyond...the world in which it is set. The novel achieves the extraordinary feat of being....a portrait of a time and place...a theatrical page turner.......and an easily understood demonstration of generous moral principles..."
It has been approximately a quarter-of-a-century since I read 'Les Miserables'. It is not, at almost 1500 pages, something I would ever revisit. I remember it vividly, as Hugo could obviously tell a story and whoever translated it did a superb job. To this day, the lengthy (over 30 pages if my memory is correct) description of the Battle of Waterloo at the beginning of Part II is as vivid a telling of the famous battle that anyone could ever wish to read. The book, the many movies, the musical - what a tale of love, conscience and devotion.
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