He shares his home with his submissive and godly sister, and a slightly more lively housekeeper whose devotion to the Bishop keeps her common sense observations in check. It begins, disarmingly enough, by introducing the saintly bishop, impoverished firstly by the Revolution and then by his own monastic lifestyle and generosity. Since the entire Les Mis stage show phenomenon had passed me by, I didn’t know the plot either and I was soon captivated by the pathos.

Les Misérables is a wonderful introduction to classic French literature – I read the Isabel Hapgood translation and loved it! Although I’ve read a fair few short stories by Balzac and listened to an abridged version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I had never before read anything by Hugo (1802-1885) and I didn’t know his style. Instead found myself hooked, abandoning other books that I should have been reading for various book groups and reviews… I began reading back in February, intending it to be one of those books that I read little-by-little on the train, at the coffee shop, and in waiting rooms of one sort or another. I’d had a copy of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (1862) on the TBR for years and I wanted to redress my woeful ignorance of classic French literature. Today I finished the first title in my Year of European Reading!

Edited 24/12/22 to get rid of an inadvertent link to Amazon and to remove dead video links.

Les miserables 1862