Les Misérables. The Man Who Laughs (set of 2 books)

«Les Misérables»

«Les Misérables» — a famous epic about the lives of people rejected by society. Among the «outcasts» are Jean Valjean, sentenced to twenty years of hard labor for stealing bread for his starving family, little Cosette, who has turned into a charming girl, and the cheerful street urchin Gavroche. The confrontation between the criminal world of Paris and the police, the disputes of political parties and the battles on the barricades, monastic laws and the church system — a brilliant picture of French society in the early 19th century.

«The Man Who Laughs»

The action of Victor Hugo's novel «The Man Who Laughs» takes place in England in the late 17th — early 18th centuries. Gwynplaine — a lord by birth, was sold to bandits called compradors as a child, who made the boy a fairground fool by carving a mask of «eternal laughter» on his face (there was a fashion among the European nobility of that time for crippled and deformed individuals who amused their lords and guests; the activities of the compradors were sometimes even encouraged).

Despite all the trials, Gwynplaine retained the best human qualities and his love.