The greatest work of one of France's greatest writers, Victor Hugo's Les Misérables has captivated readers for a century and a half with its memorable characters, its indictment of injustice, its concern for those suffering in misery, and its unapologetic embrace of revolutionary ideals. The novel's length, multiple narratives, and encyclopedic digressiveness make it a pleasure to read but a challenge to teach, and this volume is designed to address the needs of instructors in a variety of courses that include the novel in excerpts or as a whole.
Part 1 of the volume, "Materials," provides guidance on editions in French and in English translation, biographies, criticism, and maps. Part 2, "Approaches," contains essays that discuss the novel's conceptions of misère, sexuality, and the politics of the time and that demonstrate techniques for teaching context including the book's literary market, its adaptations, its place in popular culture, and its relation to other novels of its time.
About the Author: Michal P. Ginsburg is professor emerita of French and comparative literature at Northwestern University. Her main research areas are the nineteenth-century European novel (especially in France and England), narrative theory, and Israeli fiction. She is the author of Flaubert Writing: A Study in Narrative Strategies, Economies of Change: Form and Transformation in the Nineteenth-Century Novel, and Portrait Stories; coauthor of Shattered Vessels: Memory, Identity, and Creation in the work of David Shahar; and editor of Approaches to Teaching Balzac's Old Goriot.
Bradley Stephens is senior lecturer in French at the University of Bristol. His research focuses on the reception and adaptation of French Romantic fiction, with a particular interest in Victor Hugo. He is the author of numerous studies and articles in this field, including Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the Liability of Liberty and a new introduction to Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and he has coedited several collections, most recently Les Misérables and Its Afterlives: Between Page, Stage, and Screen. He is currently working on a critical biography of Hugo.
