LES MISÉRABLES

BY

VICTOR HUGO

PART PREMIER

FANTINE

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY LASCELLES WRAXALL.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

1887

VICTOR HUGO (1828)

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.

The present edition of "LES MISÉRABLES," in five volumes, has been made with the special object of supplying the work in a proper form for library use, embodying the two great requisites, clear type and handy size. It is in the main a reprint of the English translation, in three volumes, by Sir Lascelles Wraxall, which was made with the sanction and advice of the author. Chapters and passages omitted in the English edition have been specially translated for the present issue; numerous errors of the press, etc., have been corrected; and the author's own arrangement of the work in five parts, and his subdivisions into books and chapters, have been restored.

BOSTON, Sept. 1, 1887.

PREFACE

So long as, by the effect of laws and of customs, social degradation shall continue in the midst of civilization, making artificial hells, and subjecting to the complications of chance the divine destiny of man; so long as the three problems of the age,—the debasement of man by the proletariat, the ruin of woman by the force of hunger, the destruction of children in the darkness,—shall not be solved; so long as anywhere social syncope shall be possible: in other words, and from a still broader point of view, so long as ignorance and misery shall remain on earth, books like this cannot fail to be useful.

HAUTEVILLE-HOUSE, 1862.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FANTINE.