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Cosette
Cosette () is a fictional character in the 1862 novel ''Les Misérables'' by Victor Hugo and in the many adaptations of the story for stage, film, and television. Her birth name, Euphrasie, is only mentioned briefly. As the orphaned child of an unmarried mother deserted by her father, Hugo never gives her a surname. In the course of the novel, she is mistakenly identified as ''Ursule'', ''Lark'', or ''Mademoiselle Lanoire''. She is the daughter of Fantine, a working woman who leaves her to be looked after by the Thénardiers, who exploit and victimise her. Rescued by Jean Valjean, who raises Cosette as if she were his own, she grows up in a convent school. She falls in love with Marius Pontmercy, a young lawyer. Valjean's struggle to protect her while disguising his past drives much of the plot until he recognizes "that this child had a right to know life before renouncing it"—and he must allow her romantic attachment to Marius to blossom. In the novel Early life Euphrasi ...
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Les Misérables (musical)
''Les Misérables'' ( , ), colloquially known as ''Les Mis'' or ''Les Miz'' ( ), is a sung-through musical and an adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel of the same name, by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music), Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel (original French lyrics) and Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics). The original French musical premiered in Paris in 1980 with direction by Robert Hossein. Its English-language adaptation by producer Cameron Mackintosh has been running in London since October 1985, making it the longest-running musical in the West End and the second longest-running musical in the world after the original Off-Broadway run of '' The Fantasticks''. Set in early 19th-century France, ''Les Misérables'' is the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his desire for redemption, released in 1815 after serving nineteen years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a b ...
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Les Misérables
''Les Misérables'' ( , ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title. However, several alternatives have been used, including ''The Miserables'', ''The Wretched'', ''The Miserable Ones'', ''The Poor Ones'', ''The Wretched Poor'', ''The Victims'', and ''The Dispossessed''. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption. Examining the nature of law and grace, the novel elaborates upon the history of France, the architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. ''Les Misérables'' has been popularized through n ...
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Marius Pontmercy
Marius Pontmercy () is a fictional character, one of the protagonists of Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel ''Les Misérables''. He is a young student, and the suitor of Cosette. Believing Cosette lost to him, and determined to die, he joins the revolutionary association Friends of the ABC, which he associates with, but is not a part of, as they take part in the 1832 June Rebellion. Facing death in the fight, his life is saved by Jean Valjean, and he subsequently weds Cosette, a young woman whom Valjean had raised as his own. In the novel Marius and his father When Marius first appears, he is living with his rich and monarchist grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand. All his life, he has been told that his father ( Georges Pontmercy, a colonel under Napoleon) abandoned him to Gillenormand. Shortly after Marius turns seventeen, he is sent to see his father, who is ill. He arrives just after his father dies. His father has left Marius a note, instructing him to help Thénardier in a ...
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Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean () is the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel '' Les Misérables''. The story depicts the character's struggle to lead a normal life and redeem himself after serving a 19-year-long prison sentence for stealing bread to feed his sister's starving children and attempting to escape from prison. Valjean is also known in the novel as Monsieur Madeleine, Ultime Fauchelevent, Monsieur Leblanc, and Urbain Fabre. Valjean and police Inspector Javert, who repeatedly encounters Valjean and attempts to return him to prison, have become archetypes in literary culture. In the popular imagination, the character of Jean Valjean came to represent Hugo himself. Outline of the novel As a parolee, Valjean is issued a yellow passport with marching orders to Pontarlier, where he will be forced to live under severe restrictions. This document, often called a "passeport jaune" (yellow passport), identifies him to all as a former convict and immediately brands Valjean an outcast wh ...
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Thénardiers
The Thénardiers, commonly known as (; ) and , are fictional characters, and the secondary antagonists in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel and in many adaptations of the novel into other media. They are ordinary working-class people who blame society for their sufferings. Early in the novel, they own an inn and cheat their customers. After they lose the inn in bankruptcy, they change their name to and live by begging and petty thievery. They serve, alongside Javert, as one of the two arch-nemeses of the story's protagonist, Jean Valjean. While Javert represents the justice system that would punish Valjean, the Thénardiers represent the lawless subculture of society that would exploit him. The novel portrays them as brutal and abusive figures; some adaptations transform them into buffoonish characters, though sometimes still criminals, to provide comic relief from the generally more serious tone of the story. In the novel Part One: Fantine When Hugo introduces the Thénardiers, they ...
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Éponine
Éponine Thénardier (; ), also referred to as the "Jondrette girl", is a fictional character in the 1862 novel ''Les Misérables'' by Victor Hugo. The character is introduced as a spoiled and pampered child, but appears later in the novel as a ragged and impoverished teenager who speaks in the argot of the Parisian streets, while retaining vestiges of her former charm and innocence. She still loves her brother Gavroche. In the novel Life in Montfermeil Éponine is born in 1815, the oldest child of the Thénardiers. As children, Éponine and her younger sister Azelma are described as pretty, well-dressed, and charming. They are pampered and spoiled by their parents, the Thénardiers, who run an inn in Montfermeil, France. In 1818, when Fantine and her illegitimate daughter Cosette come across the inn, Fantine sees Éponine and Azelma playing outside. Cosette joins the two sisters and the three play together. Fantine asks the Thénardiers to take care of Cosette while she g ...
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Adaptations Of Les Misérables
Victor Hugo's novel ''Les Misérables'' has been the subject of many adaptations in various media since its original publication in 1862. Books (adaptations and sequels) * 1872, ''Gavroche: The Gamin of Paris'', translated and adapted by M. C. Pyle. * 1922, The Story of "Les Misérables", adapted by Isabel C. Fortey. * 1935, ''Jean Val Jean'', a condensed retelling by Solomon Cleaver. * 1946, ''Les Misérables'', adapted by Mabel Dodge Holmes, edited by Grace A. Benscoter. * 1995, ''Cosette: The Sequel to Les Misérables'' by Laura Kalpakian, more a sequel to the musical than to Hugo's novel. * 1995, ''Les Misérables'', adapted by Monica Kulling for the Bullseye Step Into Classics series. * 2001, French author François Cérésa wrote two sequels, ''Cosette or the Time of Illusions'' and ''Marius or The Fugitive''. Hugo's descendants, including his great-great-grandson Pierre Hugo, wanted the novels banned, claiming that they breached the moral rights of the author and betra ...
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Fantine
Fantine (French pronunciation: ) is a fictional character in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel ''Les Misérables''. She is a young '' grisette'' in Paris who becomes pregnant by a rich student. After he abandons her, she is forced to look after their child, Cosette, on her own. Originally a beautiful and naive girl, Fantine is eventually forced by circumstances to become a prostitute, selling her hair and front teeth, losing her beauty and health. The money she earns is sent to support her daughter. She was first played in the musical by Rose Laurens in France, and when the musical came to England, Patti LuPone played Fantine in the West End. Fantine has since been played by numerous actresses. Fantine became an archetype of self-abnegation and devoted motherhood. She has been portrayed by many actresses in stage and screen versions of the story and has been depicted in works of art. In the novel Description Hugo introduces Fantine as one of four fair girls attached to young, we ...
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Javert
Javert (), no first name given in the source novel, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel '' Les Misérables.'' He was presumably born in 1780 and died on June 7, 1832. First a prison guard, and then a police inspector, his character is defined by his legalist tendencies and lack of empathy for criminals of all forms. In the novel, he becomes obsessed with the pursuit and punishment of the protagonist Jean Valjean after his violation of parole. Character As Hugo depicts it, Javert's misguided and self-destructive pursuit of justice is more tragic than villainous. He is "a compound" of "respect for authority and hatred of rebellion," Hugo writes, "but he made them almost bad by dint of his exaggeration of them". Reflective thought is "an uncommon thing for him, and singularly painful" because thought inevitably contains "a certain amount of internal rebellion." He is without vices, but upon occasion will take a pinch of snuff. His life ...
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Émile Bayard
Émile-Antoine Bayard (2 November 1837 – 6 December 1891) was a French illustrator born in La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, Seine-et-Marne. A student of Léon Cogniet, he is known for his illustration of Cosette from ''Les Misérables'' by Victor Hugo. He died in Cairo. Career Starting in 1853, Bayard was a student of Cogniet for five years, publishing his first cartoons at the age of fifteen, often using the anagrammatic pseudonym, Abel De Miray. Between 1857 and 1864, he worked in the mediums of charcoal drawings, paintings, watercolors, woodcuts, engravings, and lithographs. In 1864, he began to work primarily for magazines, and illustrated current events such as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. At the end of the 19th century, with a growing interest in photography displacing documentary drawing, Bayard moved to illustrating novels, including ''Les Misérables'' by Victor Hugo, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' by Harriet Beecher Stowe, ''L'Immortel'' by Alphonse Daudet, "Robinson C ...
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Jardin Du Luxembourg
The Jardin du Luxembourg (), known in English as the Luxembourg Garden, colloquially referred to as the Jardin du Sénat (Senate Garden), is located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. Creation of the garden began in 1612 when Marie de' Medici, the widow of King Henry IV, constructed the Luxembourg Palace as her new residence. The garden today is owned by the French Senate, which meets in the Palace. It covers 23 hectares (56.8 acres) and is known for its lawns, tree-lined promenades, tennis courts, flowerbeds, model sailboats on its octagonal Grand Bassin, as well as picturesque Medici Fountain, built in 1620. The name Luxembourg comes from the Latin Mons Lucotitius, the name of the hill where the garden is located. History In 1611, Marie de' Medici, the widow of Henry IV and the regent for the King Louis XIII, decided to build a palace in imitation of the Pitti Palace in her native Florence. She purchased the Hôtel du Luxembourg (today the Petit Luxembourg) a ...
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Gavroche
Gavroche () is a fictional character in the 1862 novel ''Les Misérables'' by Victor Hugo. He is a boy who lives on the streets of Paris. His name has become a synonym for an urchin or street child. Gavroche plays a short yet significant role in the many adaptations of ''Les Misérables'', sharing the populist ideology of the Friends of the ABC and joining the revolutionaries in the June 1832 rebellion. He figures in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th parts of the novel. In the novel Gavroche is the eldest son of Monsieur and Madame Thénardier. He has two older sisters, Éponine and Azelma, and two unnamed younger brothers. Hugo never provides his given name but says Gavroche has chosen his own name. His parents show him no affection and send him to live in the street, where he is better off than at home. The Thénardiers sell (or lend) their two youngest sons to a woman named Magnon. Due to a freak accident, the two boys are separated from Magnon without identification, and encount ...
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