Les Miserables

Les Miserables


Les Miserables (1862) was Victor Hugo's triumph, published over thirty years after its genesis when Hugo was nearly caught in the gunfire of the Paris Uprising (June Rebellion) of 1832. The book is set in the aftermath of the anti-monarchist insurrection led by the Republicans to reverse the 1830 "July Monarchy" of Louis-Philippe. It was a particularly terrible time of turmoil and suffering in France, with widespread food shortages, poverty, and a cholera epidemic that killed over 100,000 people. This novel is a great example of the genre, Romanticism. We offer Volume I of the 1887 English translation by Isabel F. Hapgood.

Les Miserables, Cosette sweeping


Table of Contents

Volume I - Fantine - Preface

Book First - A Just Man - Chapter I - M. Myriel

Chapter II - M. Myriel Becomes M. Welcome

Chapter III - A Hard Bishopric for a Good Bishop

Chapter IV - Works Corresponding to Words

Chapter V - Monseigneur Bienvenu Made His Cassocks Last Too Long

Chapter VI - Who Guarded His House For Him

Chapter VII - Cravatte

Chapter VIII - Philosophy After Drinking

Chapter IX - The Brother As Depicted By the Sister

Chapter X - The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light

Chapter XI - A Restriction

Chapter XII - The Solitude of Monseigneur Welcom

Chapter XIII - What He Believed

Chapter XIV - What He Thought

Book Second - The Fall - Chapter I - The Evening of a Day of Walking

Chapter II - Prudence Counselled to Wisdom

Chapter III - The Heroism of Passive Obedience

Chapter IV - Details Concerning the Cheese-Dairies of Pontarlier

Chapter V - Tranquility

Chapter VI - Jean Valjean

Chapter VII - The Interior of Despair

Chapter VIII - Billows and Shadows

Chapter IX - New Troubles

Chapter X - The Man Aroused

Chapter XI - What He Does

Chapter XII - The Bishop Works

Chapter XIII - Little Gervais

Book Third - In the Year 1817 - Chapter I - The Year 1817

Chapter II - A Double Quartette

Chapter III - Four and Four

Chapter IV - Tholomyes Is So Merry That He Sings a Spanish Ditty

Chapter V - At Bombarda's

Chapter VI - A Chapter In Which They Adore Eachother

Chapter VII - The Wisdom of Tholomyes

Chapter VIII - The Death of a Horse

Chapter IX - A Merry End to Mirth

Book Fourth - To Confide Is Sometimes to Deliver Into Someone's Power

Chapter II - First Sketch of Two Unprepossessing Figures

Chapter III - The Lark

Book Fifth - The Descent - Chapter I - The History of a Progress in Black Glass Trinkets

Chapter II - Madeleine

Chapter III - Sums Deposited with Laffitte

Chapter IV - M. Madeleine in Mourning

Chapter V - Vague Flashes on the Horizon

Chapter VI - Father Fauchelevent

Chapter VII - Fauchelevent Becomes a Gardener in Paris

Chapter VIII - Madame Victurnien Expends Thirty Francs on Morality

Chapter IX - Madame Victurnien's Success

Chapter X - Result of the Success

Chapter XI - Christus Nos Liberavit

Chapter XII - M. Bamatabois's Inactivity

Chapter XIII - The Solution of Some Questions Connected with the Municipal Police

Book Sixth - Javert - Chapter I - The Beginning of Repose

Chapter II - How Jean May Become Champ

Book Seventh - The Champmathieu Affair - Chapter I - Sister Simplice

Chapter II - The Perspicacity of Master Scaufflaire

Chapter III - A Tempest in a Skull

Chapter IV - Forms Assumed by Suffering During Sleep

Chapter V - Hindrances

Chapter VI - Sister Simplice Put to the Proof

Chapter VII - The Traveller on His Arrival Takes Precautions for Departure

Chapter VIII - An Entrance by Favor

Chapter IX - A Place Where Convictions Are in Process of Formation

Chapter X - The System of Denials

Chapter XI - Champmathieu More and More Astonished

Book Eighth - A Counter Blow - Chapter I - In What Mirror M. Madeleine Contemplates His Hair

Chapter II - Fantine Happy

Chapter III - Javert Satisfied

Chapter IV - Authority Reasserts Its Rights

Chapter V - A Suitable Tomb

Return to the Victor Hugo library.

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