Victor Hugo's epic French historical novel Les…

Victor Hugo's epic French historical novel Les Misérables is published on March 31, 1862.

Hugo, perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France, though extremely conservative in his youth, has moved to the political left as the decades have passed; he has become a passionate supporter of republicanism, and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time.

He began planning a major novel about social misery and injustice as early as the 1830s, but it has taken a full seventeen years for Les Misérables, his most enduringly popular work, to be realized and finally published.