
The book which the reader has before him at this moment is, from one end to the other, in its entirety and details . Towards the end of the novel, Hugo explains the work's overarching structure: So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality so long as the three problems of the age-the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night-are not solved so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Upton Sinclair described the novel as "one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world", and remarked that Hugo set forth the purpose of Les Misérables in the Preface:


In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title. Les Misérables ( / l eɪ ˌ m ɪ z ə ˈ r ɑː b əl, - b l ə/, French: ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.
