Les Misérables: A Novel

Jean Valjean, an ex-con who spent 19 years doing hard labor in France around the revolution, finds himself bitter and hardened by his experience. But through some eye-opening experiences, he discovers God, and thus spends his life attempting to seek redemption. Throughout his life he attempts to do good deeds, even with the lawman Javert ever on the hunt for him.Valjean is one of the greatest heroes of literature, in part because he does always strive to do what is right for right's sake, but also because in many ways he represents the common man. He has made mistakes, and he has his doubts about himself. He cannot change the past, though, and so just strives to be a better man for the future. In many ways, we all seek redemption for our past misdeeds, and perhaps we even wonder when, if ever, we will have done enough. Valjean's tale is a moving one that should be experienced by everyone.Please note that this edition is an abridged one. However, I feel that this edition manages to capture all of the important bits of Valjean's tale while losing almost nothing of direct importance to his story. The only tragic cut is that a large part of Fantine's tale is missing, but other than that I find this is the edition of the story I prefer for those who actually care about the story first and foremost.

The musical Les Miserables (which I love) prompted me to read the book by Victor Hugo. I really enjoyed the read despite my initial misgivings taking up a French classic written so long ago. Despite this, it is very easy to read and, knowing the story of the musical, the extra dimension the book provides about the characters, kept me interested all the way. A few of the words used were not familiar to me and had me using the dictionary at times, probably because they have dropped out of modern usage.This book I believe is the abridged version as the original contained many long asides which became a little tedious to some readers. That said the story lacks nothing in detail in it's setting or depth of the characters. I found the book hard to put down and will definitely buy the unabridged version as M. Hugo was such a gifted writer and I also intend to explore more classic authors.

I like the translation and I like the editing, but I see no point to the blanked out names of the major places where the story takes place. The edition still leaves in plenty of other names, titles and words, even French phrases with translation, but the name of the city Jean Valjean is mayor of? Redacted out. Completely mysterious. I'll have to look in another edition to see where the Bishop was and where Valjean worked...

I didn’t realize this was in French haha that’s definitely my bad, so the book is otherwise great. Make sure you want it in French though if you’re going to get this one!

I could not believe at my age I had not read this book or at a minimum know the story. My friend told me I just must read this. Humph....He was right. I bawled and smiled and cheered. It was amazing. It took my breath away. I wanted to jump into the book. The feelings it stirred up are hard to put into words. I hope it touches every reader the same way.

The first time I read Les Miserables it was the unabridged version and that was so full of story and historical facts that built up the setting and the characters. I thought it would be a little too much though for my 12 year old to read all of the history of the rise and fall of Napoleon and how he affected the political climate of the times so I chose the abridged version. Unfortunately, I found myself having to orally relate the back story of many important characters that set up the horrible and amazing consequences and results of actions and relationships. What an amazing book the unabridged Les Mis was, but this one was choppy to me. It just left out too much.

I read Les Mis on a kindle and loved it so much, I had to get a hard copy. This book has heft! Under the paper cover, the binding is blue. I found the hard cover to be handsome, if simple. The words are a comfortable size on the page (not tiny to try to make the book less huge).

I found this book at my local library and it made me fall in love again with the written word. This story has a special place on my shelf :)

A lot of choice on which Les Mis to download and in the end I picked one with a small charge. Well worth it. Free isn't always best. If you are like me and a huge fan of the musical but want to dig deeper then this would be one to go for. It is renowned as a 'big book' and one where Victor Hugo added a lost of historical information and social comment. That has been sifted out of this edition so that you can just stay with the main plot of the story. For me that works. When I've read it I'll know where to go if I want to read deeper again. But I'm enjoying the simplicity of just letting this magnificent story unfurl.

I chose to read this classic after both seeing the show a few years ago and then seeing the film. I wanted to read the original story as written by Victor Hugo. This has taken me the best part of my two weeks holiday and it is still not finished. It has transported me back into the days of the French Revolution and I now understand so much more than from either the show or the film.Victor Hugo must have had a brilliant mind and what I love about the Kindle version is that I can find out the meaning of any words with no real effort.In my view this should be given to all students be they literary or otherwise.

Always wanted to read the book behind the stage show and film. Found this one available for Kindle and feel that it is the best version available. There are lots of extras, such as the background to Hugo's life, which helps to set the context of the book.

After watching the DVD of the musical, I felt I wanted to read the text (translated) as Victor Hugo had written it. but did not think I could cope with the 1,200 pages version! This one is excellent - far more moving than the fim/DVD. I coul;dn't put it down.

A classic abridgement of the novel, with notes on the missing sections and useful annotations which are easy to navigate and provide useful definitions and background information.