Les Misérables tells the story of many different characters and spans over 17 years, beginning in 1815, and ending in 1832. Hugo spent over 15 years writing Les Misérables. The novel contains a whopping 365 chapters and is 1,400 pages long (in the original French there are 1,900 pages). It is considered to be one of the longest novels in history! [1]
The first English translation of Victor Hugo’s monumental novel Les Miserables was published on 7 June 1862, the same year the novel was published. Hugo’s work was a sweeping and complex narrative that explored themes of justice, redemption, and the human condition.
The task of translating such a masterpiece into English fell to C.E. Wilbour. His translation uses an old style of English and tries to capture the flavor of the original by retaining French word order—or actual French words and sentences. It’s generally considered quite faithful to Hugo’s original, although the language has dated in ways that Hugo’s novel has not.
Charles Edwin Wilbour was an American Egyptologist who left behind a large collection of books, letters, notebooks, and other records which are now housed in the Brooklyn Museum. He completed his translation of Les Miserables in New York before leaving the United States in 1874 to pursue his interest in Egyptian antiquities.
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What’s the best translation of Les Miserables?
Best English Translations of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables
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