Les Miserables

Plot Jean Valjean is sentenced to prison for nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread in order to feed his starving sister and her child. After his release, Valjean plans to rob a bishop, but the clergyman's saintliness makes him change his mind. Unable to find an honest living as an ex-convict, he forfeits his parole by throwing away his letters of parole and changing his name, and for this crime Valjean is hunted by the police inspector Javert. Under his new name, Valjean becomes a successful businessman, benefactor and mayor of a small town. To save an innocent man, he gives himself up and is imprisoned. He escapes and adopts Cosette, the daughter of a poor woman who had worked in one of his factories. Cosette grows up and falls in love with the young revolutionary Marius, who is wounded during a battle. Valjean rescues Marius by means of a flight through the sewers of Paris, with Javert in hot pursuit. Cosette and Marius marry, and Valjean reveals his past.

Within the borders of this Romantic plot, the author Victor Hugo filled many pages with his thoughts on religion, politics, and society. It has been considered inspirational by many who felt oppressed since then.

Adaptations The story has been filmed several times:

• 1909[?], directed by J. Stuart Blackton[?]
• 1911[?], directed by Albert Capellani[?]
• 1913[?], directed again by Albert Capellani[?]
• 1917[?], directed by Frank Lloyd[?]
• 1922[?], director unknown
• 1925[?], directed by Henri Fescourt[?]
• 1934[?], directed by Raymond Bernard[?]
• 1935, directed by Richard Boleslawski[?]
• 1952[?], directed by Lewis Milestone
• 1957[?], directed by Jean-Paul Le Chanois[?]
• 1982[?], directed by Robert Hossein[?]
• 1990[?], directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau[?]
• 1995[?], directed by Claude Lelouch[?]
• 1998[?], directed by Bille August
• 2001[?] - French TV miniseries directed by Josée Dayan and co-produced by Gerard Depardieu

It was made into a musical by the composer Claude-Michel Schönberg[?] and the librettist Alain Boublil[?]: see Les Misérables (musical).

In 2001, BBC Radio 4 produced a 25-part radio dramatisation, with a cast of 27 featuring Joss Ackland[?] narrating, Roger Allam[?] as Valjean, and David Schofield[?] as Javert.

In May 2001, Francois Ceresa[?] published Cosette, or the Time of Illusions, a sequel to Les Miserables. Victor Hugo's descendants attempted unsuccessfully to have the book banned, condemning it as a money-seeking enterprise and an attack on Hugo's work (more subjective offences aside, it is undeniable that Ceresa retconned a key scene in Hugo's novel to avoid the death of a character he wanted to use in his novel). [1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/1542284.stm)