Les Miserables.

HUGO, Victor.

Item Number: 141422

Bruxelles : Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Ce, 1862.

Scarce first printing of this classic work of literature, published in Brussels on the 30th or 31st March 1862. Large octavos, 10 volumes, bound in full morocco, gilt titles and tooling to the spine, triple gilt ruled to the front and rear panels, raised bands, inner dentelles, marbled endpapers. In near fine condition. An exceptional example of this rarity.

Victor Hugo’s “great novel has been hailed as a masterpiece of popular literature, an epic poem in prose about God, humanity, and Hugo… Hugo hoped that Les Misérables would be one of if not the ‘principal summits’ of his body of works. Despite its length, complexity, and occasionally unbelievable plot and characterization, it remains a masterpiece of popular literature. It anticipates Balzac in its realism, but in its flights of imagination and lyricism, its theme of redemption, and its melding of myth and history, it is uniquely Hugo” (Dolbow, 149, 214). Charles E. Wilbour was hired by the Carleton Publishing Company to translate Hugo's grand masterpiece, and he did so very quickly, allowing the first American edition to be published within months of its French release. The intense advertising campaign waged by Carleton resulted in massive sales for Les Misérables, solidifying Hugo's epic in second place (behind only Uncle Tom's Cabin) in pre-Civil War American book sales.