The narrator

Hugo does not give the narrator a name and allows the reader to identify the narrator with the novel's author. The narrator occasionally injects himself into the narrative or reports facts outside the time of the narrative to emphasize that he is recounting historical events, not entirely fiction. He introduces his recounting of?Waterloo?with several paragraphs describing the narrator's recent approach to the battlefield: "Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles?..."?The narrator describes how "[a]n observer, a dreamer, the author of this book" during the 1832 street fighting was caught in crossfire: "All that he had to protect him from the bullets was the swell of the two half columns which separate the shops; he remained in this delicate situation for nearly half an hour." At one point he apologizes for intruding—"The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of mentioning himself"—to ask the reader's understanding when he describes "the Paris of his youth?... as though it still existed." This introduces a meditation on memories of past places that his contemporary readers would recognize as a self-portrait written from exile: "you have left a part of your heart, of your blood, of your soul, in those pavements." He describes another occasion when a bullet shot "pierced a brass shaving-dish suspended?... over a hairdresser's shop. This pierced shaving-dish was still to be seen in 1848, in the Rue du Contrat-Social, at the corner of the pillars of the market." As evidence of police double agents at the barricades, he writes: "The author of this book had in his hands, in 1848, the special report on this subject made to the Prefect of Police in 1832."

Contemporary reception

The appearance of the novel was a highly anticipated event as Victor Hugo was considered one of France's foremost poets in the middle of the nineteenth century. The?New York Times?announced its forthcoming publication as early as April 1860.?Hugo forbade his publishers from summarizing his story and refused to authorize the publication of excerpts in advance of publication. He instructed them to build on his earlier success and suggested this approach: "What Victor H. did for the Gothic world in?Notre-Dame of Paris?[The Hunchback of Notre-Dame], he accomplishes for the modern world in?Les Misérables".?A massive advertising campaign?preceded the release of the first two volumes of?Les Misérables?in Brussels on 30 or 31 March and in Paris on 3 April 1862.?The remaining volumes appeared on 15 May 1862.

Critical reactions were wide-ranging and often negative. Some critics found the subject matter immoral, others complained of its excessive sentimentality, and others were disquieted by its apparent sympathy with the revolutionaries. L. Gauthier wrote in?Le Monde?of 17 August 1862: "One cannot read without an unconquerable disgust all the details Monsieur Hugo gives regarding the successful planning of riots."?The?Goncourt brothers?judged the novel artificial and disappointing.?Flaubert?found "neither truth nor greatness" in it. He complained that the characters were crude stereotypes who all "speak very well – but all in the same way". He deemed it an "infantile" effort and brought an end to Hugo's career like "the fall of a god".?In a newspaper review,?Charles Baudelaire?praised Hugo's success in focusing public attention on social problems, though he believed that such propaganda was the opposite of art. In private he castigated it as "repulsive and inept" ("immonde et inepte").

The work was a commercial success and has been a popular book ever since it was published.?Translated the same year it appeared into several foreign languages, including?Italian,?Greek, and?Portuguese, it proved popular not only in France, but across Europe and abroad.

English translations

• Charles E. Wilbour. New York: Carleton Publishing Company, June 1862. The first English translation. The first volume was available for purchase in New York beginning 7 June 1862.?Also New York and London:?George Routledge and Sons, 1879.

• Lascelles Wraxall. London:?Hurst and Blackett, October 1862. The first British translation.

• Translator identified as "A.F." Richmond, Virginia, 1863. Published by West and Johnston publishers. The Editor's Preface announces its intention of correcting errors in Wilbour's translation. It said that some passages "exclusively intended for the French readers of the book" were being omitted, as well as "[a]?few scattered sentences reflecting on slavery" because "the absence of a few antislavery paragraphs will hardly be complained of by Southern readers." Because of paper shortages in wartime, the passages omitted became longer with each successive volume.

• Isabel Florence Hapgood. Published 1887, this translation is available at?Project Gutenberg.

• Norman Denny.?Folio Press, 1976. A modern British translation later re-published in paperback by Penguin Books,?ISBN?0-14-044430-0. The translator explains in an introduction that he has placed two of the novel's longer digressive passages into appendices and made some minor abridgements in the text.

• Lee Fahnestock and Norman McAfee.?Signet Classics. 3 March 1987. An unabridged edition based on the Wilbour translation with its language modernized. Paperback?ISBN?0-451-52526-4

• Julie Rose. 2007.?Vintage Classics, 3 July 2008. A new translation of the full work, with a detailed biographical sketch of Victor Hugo's life, a chronology, and notes.?ISBN?978-0-09-951113-7

• Christine Donougher.?Penguin Classics, 7 November 2013. A new translation of the full work, with a detailed biographical sketch of Victor Hugo's life, a chronology, and notes.?ISBN?978-0141393599

Adaptations

Main article:?Adaptations of?Les Misérables

Since its original publication,?Les Misérables?has been the subject of a large number of adaptations in numerous types of media, such as?books,?films,?musicals,?plays?and?games.

Notable examples of these adaptations include:

• The?1934 film, 4?-hour French version directed by?Raymond Bernard?and starring?Harry Baur,?Charles Vanel,?Florelle,?Josseline Ga?l?and?Jean Servais.

• The?1935 film?directed by?Richard Boleslawski, starring?Fredric March?and?Charles Laughton, nominated for?Best Picture,?Best Film Editing,?Best Assistant Director?at?8th Academy Awards.

• The?1937 radio adaptation?by?Orson Welles.

• The?1952 film adaptation?directed by?Lewis Milestone, starring?Michael Rennie?and?Robert Newton.

• The?1958 film adaptation?directed by?Jean-Paul Le Chanois, with an international cast starring?Jean Gabin,?Bernard Blier, and?Bourvil.?Called "the most memorable film version", it was filmed in East Germany and was overtly political.

• The?1978 television film adaptation, starring?Richard Jordan?and?Anthony Perkins.

• The?1980 musical, by?Alain Boublil?and?Claude-Michel Sch?nberg.

• The?1982 film adaptation, directed by?Robert Hossein, starring?Lino Ventura?and?Michel Bouquet.

• The?1995 film, by?Claude Lelouch, starring?Jean-Paul Belmondo

• The?1998 film, starring?Liam Neeson?and?Geoffrey Rush.

• The?2000 TV miniseries, starring?Gérard Depardieu?and?John Malkovich.

• The?2007 TV anime adaptation, by Studio?Nippon Animation.

• The?2010 concert?starring?Alfie Boe,?Norm Lewis,?Samantha Barks?and?Lea Salonga?performed at?The O2 Arena.?

• The?2012 film?of the?musical, starring?Hugh Jackman,?Russell Crowe,?Anne Hathaway?and?Amanda Seyfried.

• A?2018 British TV series?by?Andrew Davies, starring?Dominic West,?David Oyelowo?and?Lily Collins.

Sequels

• Laura Kalpakian's?Cosette: The Sequel to Les Misérables?was published in 1995. It continues the story of Cosette and Marius, but is more a sequel to the musical than to the original novel.

• In 2001, two French novels by?Fran?ois Cérésa?[fr]?that continue Hugo's story appeared:?Cosette ou le temps des illusions?and?Marius ou le fugitif. The former has been published in an English translation. Javert appears as a hero who survived his suicide attempt and becomes religious; Thénardier returns from America; Marius is unjustly imprisoned.?The works were the subject of an unsuccessful lawsuit,?Société Plon et autres v. Pierre Hugo et autres?brought by Hugo's great-great-grandson.