Les Misérables | Review of Part I

In the following excerpt from a review of Part I of the novel, in contrast to most critics of the period following the initial publication of Les Miserables, this anonymous reviewer gives the novel unqualified praise.

[Les Miserables] is the greatest and most elaborate work of Victor Hugo's fruitful genius.... A novel, in the ordinary acceptation of that term, [Fantine] is not. The ordinary novel, according to Carlyle, is a "tale of adventures which did not occur in God's creation, but only in the Waste Chambers, (to be let unfurnished,) of certain human heads, and which are part and parcel of the Sum of No-things; which, nevertheless, obtain some temporary remembrance, and lodge extensively, at this epoch of the world, in similar still more unfurnished chambers. "These...

[The entire page is 1535 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...