The story begins in 1815 in Digne, as the peasant Jean Valjean, just released from 19 years' imprisonment in the Bagne of Toulon-five for stealing bread for his

Les Misérables is widely regarded as the greatest epic and dramatic work of fiction ever created or conceived: the epic of a soul transfigured and redeemed, pu

Valjean volunteers to execute Javert himself, and Enjolras grants permission. Valjean takes Javert out of sight, and then shoots into the air while letting him

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "pub

The first new Penguin Classics translation in forty years of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, the subject of The Novel of the Century by David Bellos—published in