PREFACE

Name: Les Miserables - Preface
Author: Victor Hugo

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilisation, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age- the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night- are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Hauteville House, 1862.

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Chicago: Victor Hugo, "Preface," Les Miserables, trans. Charles E. Wilbour Original Sources, accessed October 31, 2025, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=WH93HSKKZ8M2IAN.

MLA: Hugo, Victor. "Preface." Les Miserables, translted by Charles E. Wilbour, Original Sources. 31 Oct. 2025. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=WH93HSKKZ8M2IAN.

Harvard: Hugo, V, 'Preface' in Les Miserables, trans. . Original Sources, retrieved 31 October 2025, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=WH93HSKKZ8M2IAN.