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Les Miserables!!
is one of the most powerful and revolutionary (d'uh) books ever written, and it was turned into quite possibly the most amusing and emotional musical, no matter how horrible the company performing it. The author was Victor-Marie Hugo, and often his story goes untold. |
Hugo
was born in France in 1802. By the age of thirty, he was already recognized as a legend, and was a popular writer, but like many great artists, did not live to see his peak of credit and admiration. One of the reasons was probably that he lived restrained and disciplined under the tyrannies of France in the mid-late 1800's. Many generalized examples of these tyrannies are demonstrated in Les Miserables- for instance, Jean Valjean is sentenced to five years in the Galleys for robbing a loaf of bread from a baker's shop/house. Hugo opposed Louis Napoleon's coup of 1851, and was therefore banished to the Channel Island of Guernsey for twenty years. In the time, he wrote many passionate novels, flavored by the emotions of those banished by a society where the unjust is law and the just is outlawed. Les Miserables was one of those novels. It was first published in 1862, and in twenty four hours of arrival, the first Paris edition was sold out. Victor returned from exile and could finally die in peace in his adoring Paris, 1885. Victor Hugo was buried in the Pantheon, honored as one of France's greatest men, and his works, especially Les Miserables, continue to swipe the breath of every country, as some of the greatest treasures to come out of Europe. |
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Victor-Marie Hugo
1802-1885
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