With breath-taking realism, Victor Hugo takes readers deep into the Parisian underworld and carries them to the barricades during the uprising of 1832. This dramatic tale follows the stories of the peasant Jean Valjean, Fontine the prostitute, Thenardier the rogue and the universal desire to escape the prisons of one’s own mind. Les Misérables is an extravagant spectacle that dazzles the senses even as it touches the heart.