He adopts a new identity and creates a business that employs hundreds of workers, raising them out of poverty, and when one of them, a woman called Fantine, dies after being wrongly dismissed, he tracks down her daughter and raises her as his own, with the young girl, Cosette, growing into a beautiful young woman who is a comfort to Valjean in his old age.Īlas, the story doesn’t run quite as smoothly as I’ve made it sound. We begin back in 1815, when Jean Valjean, an escaped prisoner, has two encounters with people he meets along the path of his flight, meetings that inspire him to turn over a new leaf and devote his life to helping others. Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is a story most of you will be familiar with, even if you haven’t read the book. It was definitely worth the effort, even if it was a bit of a struggle at times, and today, I’ll tell you all about the journey 🙂

As it turned out, though, I’ve had a fair bit of spare time on my hands this year (like most people…), so while I carried on with my usual reading and reviewing, I continually came back to my pair of bricks, eventually managing to finish the book about a week ago. You see, while young Emily read the translation, I was determined to try the original, which meant this wasn’t a project I’d be knocking off quickly. When my daughter picked up a lengthy classic novel last year and devoured it in a couple of weeks, I was inspired to do the same, and managed to source a two-volume second-hand copy online in preparation for what would be a far longer journey.

Victor hugo miserables