Les Miserables is a romantic novel packed with revealing incidents of slum life and poverty in 19th-century France. The core of the book deals with Jean Valjean, a criminal who serves as an example of the misery and contradictions of society with which Victor Hugo was especially concerned. Les Miserables is both a powerful social document and an extremely interesting and dramatic narrative, which is the culmination of 14 years' work and Hugo's masterpiece.
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