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Les Misérables

by Victor Hugo

First published 1862

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4.5(1,287)

Jean Valjean leaves prison after nineteen years and tries to build a new life under the moral pressure of his past. His story draws together Fantine, Cosette, Javert, Marius and the Thénardiers, moving from personal guilt and mercy into the poverty, policing and political unrest of post-Napoleonic France.

The novel ranges across the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy, with the June Rebellion of 1832 giving the final Paris sections their historical frame. Hugo uses the lives of fictional characters to examine law, conscience, social exclusion, revolutionary memory and the unfinished consequences of Waterloo and the French Revolution.

Historical Periods

Battle of Waterloo1815-06-18 Bourbon Restoration in France1814–1830 CE June Rebellion of 18321832 CE

Historical people

Napoleon1769–1821 Louis XVIII of France1755–1824 Louis-Philippe I1773–1850 Jean Maximilien Lamarque1770–1832

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