Volume 67 pages
2012 year
Les Miserables
About the book
A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Jennifer Bassett.
France, 1815. Jean Valjean leaves prison after nineteen years. These are dangerous and troubled times, and life is hard. Valjean must begin a new life, but how can he escape his past, and his enemy, Inspector Javert? This story for Bookworms is loosely based on the famous novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, one of France's greatest writers. The novel was written in 1862, and the story has been retold many times – in a musical, in plays for radio and theatre, and in more than fifty films for television and cinema.
Genres and tags
FOREWORD Now we meet Fantine. She is young and beautiful, and in love with a man in Paris. But she has no family, and no money. For Fantine, this is the love of her life; for the man in Paris, it is just a summer of love. Men are not kind to women. They have their fun, and then they walk away. The man in Paris goes home to his rich family, and leaves poor Fantine with a child, a little girl called Cosette. Fantine must find work, but how? Fantine has a child but no husband, and a woman without a husband is nothing. Worse than nothing. People are not kind to a woman with a child but no husband. They turn their faces away, they close their doors, they say, ‘There’s no work here for a woman like you.’ Fantine loves her daughter dearly, but what can she do? So, in 1818, in a village near Paris, she leaves her little daughter with Monsieur and Madame Thénardier. They ask for seven francs a month. Fantine pays the money, holds her daughter in her arms for the last time, and leaves. She takes the road
