The Man Who Laughs is a novel by Victor Hugo, originally published in April 1869 under the French title L'Homme qui rit. It takes place in England in the 1680s and 1700s, during the reigns of James II and Queen Anne, respectively, and depicts England's royalty and aristocracy of the time as cruel and power-hungry. Hugo intended parallels between the England depicted and the France of Louis-Philippe and the Régence. The novel concerns the life of...

A retelling of the tale, set in medieval Paris, of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, and his struggles to save the beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda from being unjustly executed.

Victor Hugo's towering novel of Jean Valjean, his unjust imprisonment, and his lifelong flight from a relentless police officer

Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, Les Miserables follows Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and town mayor. Despite this, he is haunted by an impulsive former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector...

Ninety-Three (1874) is the final novel of Victor Hugo. As a work of historical fiction, the story is set during the period of conflict between the newly formed French Republic and the Royalists who sought to reverse the gains of the revolution. Praised for its morality and honest depiction of the horrors of war, Ninety-Three influenced such wide-ranging political thinkers as Joseph Stalin and Ayn Rand. "The soldiers forced cautiously. Everything was...

Presents Victor Hugo's classic novel about convict Jean-Valjean who struggles to escape his past in a world of poverty and ignorance during the French Revolution; and includes explanatory notes, chronology of the author's life and work, critical analysis, timeline of important events, and an outline of key themes and plots.

Trying to forget his past and live an honest life, ex-convict Jean Valjean risks his freedom to take care of a motherless young girl during a period of political unrest in Paris.

Set in the year 1482, this classic novel describes medieval life as it focuses on the virtues and passions of Quasimodo, the hunchback; Esmeralda, innocent and steadfast; and Claude Frollo.