A convict freed in 1815 after nineteen years for a loaf of bread rebuilds his life under new names while the police inspector Javert hunts him.
A huge, digressive, deeply moving novel whose plot is simple enough to follow in one thread: a man and the names other people give him. Hugo wanders into Waterloo and the sewers, but the story always returns to mercy and its price. Four and a half out of five, in my view.
Every guide comes as a video and a full written article. Pick the one you need: the review is spoiler-free, the ending explained is not.
A full-spoiler Les Miserables summary of all five volumes, told through Jean Valjean's seven names and numbers: the loaf, the nineteen years, Madeleine, the barricade, Javert, and the stone with no name. From the Project Gutenberg text.
Les Misérables is a novel by Victor Hugo about the convict Jean Valjean, the police inspector Javert, and the people between them, across five volumes: Fantine, Cosette, Marius, Saint-Denis and Jean Valjean. We read the text of Project Gutenberg ebook 135, Isabel F. Hapgood’s English translation, so every detail on this page comes from a book you can read for free.
Below you’ll find a summary told through Valjean’s seven names and numbers, from the loaf of bread to the stone with no name on it. The page has full spoilers, since the whole story is covered.
A huge, digressive, deeply moving novel whose plot is simple enough to follow in one thread: a man and the names other people give him. Hugo wanders into Waterloo and the sewers, but the story always returns to mercy and its price. Four and a half out of five, in my view. Read it if: you want a sweeping classic about mercy, justice and redemption; you liked the musical or a film and want the full story; you enjoy stories with a long hunt between two men; you are studying it and need the plot and the ending. Skip it if: you dislike long digressions on history, slang and sewers; you want a quick read: it is five volumes; you have read it and only need a plot refresher.
A full-spoiler Les Miserables summary of all five volumes, told through Jean Valjean's seven names and numbers: the loaf, the nineteen years, Madeleine, the barricade, Javert, and the stone with no name. From the Project Gutenberg text. Les Miserables Summary: The Seven Names of Jean Valjean →
Victor Hugo's novel follows Jean Valjean, a convict freed in October 1815 after nineteen years in the galleys. A bishop's mercy turns him toward good, he rebuilds his life as the mayor Monsieur Madeleine, adopts Fantine's daughter Cosette, and is hunted for decades by the police inspector Javert, up to the June 1832 barricade in Paris.
Valjean spares Javert at the barricade and fires his pistol into the air. Javert later lets Valjean take Marius home, writes a note for the administration at the Place du Chatelet, and drowns himself in the Seine in the small hours of the seventh of June 1832.
Marius, who has learned that Valjean saved his life in the sewer, hurries with Cosette to Valjean's rooms. Valjean dies between them with the bishop's silver candlesticks lit nearby and asks for a stone with no name on it. The last chapter describes a plain stone in the Pere Lachaise cemetery on which no name can be read.
