Congratulations again, Rosemary.
Les Misérables has been translated variously also as The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, and The Victims before becoming the definitive title.
The story begins in 1815 with the main protagonist Jean Valjean, just released from prison after serving nineteen years; five of them for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving sister and her family, and fourteen as punishment for his repeated and always unsuccessful escapes. There are 10 major characters and more than twice as many minor ones. Separate parts carry the names of major characters, one of them a little girl, Cosette, pictured on many covers of Les Misérables, standing in deep water apparently in a hovel of a home with a look of utterhelplessness, holding a broom that would be enormous even on the hand of an adult.
Victor Hugo, 1802-1885, wrote poetry from an early age and was an ardent admirer of François René count of Chateaubriand), (1768-1848) who is considered the forerunner of French Romanticism. Hugo's youthful passion and eloquence brought early successes, especially Odes et Ballades, but IMHO the depth of the much later Les Misérables is more akin to the realism of Emile Zola than Chateaubriand's effusive, rather self-involved romantic melancholy.
In 1841 Hugo was (finally) elected to join the Académie Française, the illustrious body who are members for life. Some of them had fought hard to keep Hugo and his "romantic evolution" out.
He served in the General Assembly of France and initially supported the restoration of the Bourbons after the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. But when Napoleon III. seized power in 1851 and established an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly branded him a a traitor to France. Then he left France, went first to Brussels, then settled with his family in Saint Peter Port in Guernsey. There he published anti-royalist pamphlets, that were banned in France, finished Les Misérables and continued to write. The book was publishedin Belgium in
1862.
Not only the critics resented the novel, several writers did too, among them Gustave Flaubert who said it contained "neither truth nor greatness. And Charles Baudelaire ( (The Flowers of Evil = Les fleurs du mal) castigate L.M. in private as "tasteless and inept".
But posterity had other ideas, and the work has remained popular and had many adaptations in the modern media.
Thank you for participating.
