She eventually succumbs to prostitution to provide money to keep Cosette with the family she believes care for her. Fantine is a sad soul and, desperate for money she sells everything she has including her hair and teeth. The child, a daughter named Cosette, lives with a family named the Thenardiers in Montfermeil, Paris. He discovers that one of his workers Fantine, has an illegitimate child and she is fired. He changes his name to Monsieur Madeleine, becomes a factory owner and Mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer in the north of France. Hunted by a ruthless policeman named Javert for breaking parole, Valjean avoids detection and capture for years. He vows to change his life at that moment. He repents and tries to find the boy to return the money but it is too late, the theft has been reported and he is once again a wanted man.

However Valjean’s bad habits get the better of him and he steals money from a child. The Bishop tells him he must repent of his bad ways and change his life. He steals from the Bishop of Digne and is astonished when the Bishop lies to save him from imprisonment. He serves 19 years on the chain gang for stealing bread to feed his starving sister and her children and is embittered by years of hardship. The book’s main character Jean Valjean is a man to whom life has not been kind. We give you here a very short synopsis of Les Misérables – it’s a long book with lots of twists and turns, subplots and lengthy forays on religion, politics, and society. The novel is in five volumes and is one of the longest novels ever written, 1900 pages in the French version,and contains the longest sentence ever written – 800 words. Now Les Misèrables is about to become successful with a whole new raft of fans as its has been made into a Hollywood blockbuster. The name Les Misèrables means The Unfortunate Ones or The Wretched. It is a tale of woe and angst, love, loss and redemption set in France in the early 1800s against a backdrop of revolutionary fervour.

When Victor Hugo published Les Misèrables in 1862 it too became a huge hit with the public.

Les Miserables Summary: Victor Hugo achieved great fame in France for his story The Hunchback of Notre Dame which he published in 1831 and which was an instant triumph.

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