Les misérables

About this book

From its informative chronology of Hugo's life and work and its excellent historical overview of Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic France, through its closing meditation on Hugo's vision of utopian society, Katherine M. Grossman's Les Miserables: Conversion, Revolution, Redemption is a model examination of a literary masterwork. At the heart of Grossman's close readings of several key sections of the novel is an interpretation of its protagonist, Jean Valjean, an Everyman embodying the hopes of oppressed people everywhere.