"AN EPIC POEM IN PROSE ABOUT GOD, HUMANITY, AND HUGO"

HUGO, Victor. Les Misérables. New York: William R. Jenkins, Éditeur et Libraire Français, 1890. Five volumes. 12mo, publisher's three-quarter brown polished calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, black morocco spine labels, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt. $2500.

Later American edition in French of Hugo’s “massive novel of human redemption” (Dolbow, 213), in attractive publisher’s calf binding.

Victor Hugo's story of Jean Valjean is one of the most beloved in all French literature. Hugo's "great novel has been hailed as a masterpiece of popular literature, an epic poem in prose about God, humanity, and Hugo… Hugo hoped that Les Misérables would be one of if not the 'principal summits' of his body of works. Despite its length, complexity, and occasionally unbelievable plot and characterization, it remains a masterpiece of popular literature. It anticipates Balzac in its realism, but in its flights of imagination and lyricism, its theme of redemption, and its melding of myth and history, it is uniquely Hugo" (Dolbow, 149, 214). "It had taken Hugo 17 years to produce what would become his magnum opus and one of the most influential novels ever written… It was an instant success and sales clearly showed that Hugo had managed to do something that no one had done before; he had reached the masses with a work of serious fiction. Everybody, all over the world, was reading the story of Jean Valjean, Fantine, Javert and Cosette" (Michaux). Text in French. Owner signature.

Interiors generally quite clean, slightest foxing to fore-edges. Minimal edge-wear and tiny abrasions to calf, one volume with expert inner hinge repair. Gilt bright. A handsome set, very nearly fine.