Les Misérables is one of the greatest novels of the 19th century, published for the first time in 1862. In it Victor Hugo takes readers deeply into the Parisian subsoil, plunges them into a battle between good and evil and elaborates the history of France, politics, moral philosophy, justice, religion, and brings them on the barricades during the revolt of 1832 with a breathtaking realism that is unsurpassed in modern prose.