Read by Ryan T., Sarah Jennings, Kalynda, Heather Barnett, Melissa, Peter Eastman, Zachary Brewster-Geisz, Ancilla, Charlene V. Smith, David Jaquay · 71 chapters · 13 h 45
Jean Valjean has spent nineteen years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Released but shunned by everyone, he is saved from despair by the extraordinary kindness of a bishop, and he resolves to become a new man. In the first volume of Victor Hugo's monumental novel, we meet him, we meet the unfortunate Fantine, and we meet the inspector Javert, who will not let the past rest. Hugo writes on a vast canvas, full of digressions, speeches and portraits of Paris and of the French provinces, with a passion for justice that burns on every page. This is the beginning of one of the great novels of the nineteenth century, a story of suffering, redemption and love.
Introduction
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was the dominant figure of French Romanticism, a poet, playwright and novelist who also played an active part in the politics of his time. Les Misérables, published in 1862, occupied him for many years, and it is the greatest of his novels. It was translated into English almost at once, and the version used for this recording, by Isabel Florence Hapgood, dates from 1887.
The book is divided into five parts, and this recording presents the first, which is called Fantine. It introduces the principal characters and sets the great themes of the whole work: the harshness of the law, the cost of poverty, the possibility of moral change. Hugo does not hurry: he gives whole chapters to the life of a provincial bishop before Valjean even appears, and later in the work he pauses to describe the battle of Waterloo, the sewers of Paris or the history of convents. These long passages are part of the book's grandeur, a portrait of a whole society.
Les Misérables has since inspired countless adaptations for the stage, the cinema and television, but the novel itself remains a vast and moving experience, written with an urgency that has not dimmed.
This LibriVox recording has seventy-one sections and lasts almost fourteen hours. It is read by volunteers. It is a splendid way to begin a long journey with a great story and a large-hearted narrator. Those who have seen the stage musical or the films will discover how much more the book contains. It is the first step in a long and unforgettable journey, and this volume stands very well on its own for the first stretch.
Public domain
Victor Hugo died in 1885: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
