Trump lawyers say company being tyrannized in Les Misérables parallel
Attorneys in New York fraud trial call court-appointed monitor overseeing Trump Organization a ‘Javert’ figure
September 2022
Unfinish’d sympathy: can literature get over reading disability morally?
The ‘crookednesse’ of Richard III’s back was presented by Shakespeare as an expression of his villainy while Quasismodo embodied saintly unworldliness. Are we ready to see disability without symbolism?
August 2020
Ladj Ly on shocking President Macron with his Paris riot film: 'How could he not know?'
The French leader was so appalled by Les Misérables, a film about a riot in a tough banlieue, that he launched an investigation. The director of ‘the new La Haine’ talks about the country’s angry underclass
May 2020
Lockdown reading
Big, bold and brilliant: books to last through lockdown
From Les Misérables to the Neapolitan quartet, Viv Groskop picks the best series and sagas to get stuck into
January 2020
Les Misérables review – just hear these people sing!
With a cast that never misses a note, the West End’s longest-running musical proves a haunting and thrilling inspiration
April 2019
Victor Hugo gave Notre Dame life as the vibrant heart of France. It can be reborn
Bradley Stephens
No wonder The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a bestseller again, says Bradley Stephens, professor of French literature
Victor Hugo's Notre Dame novel tops bestseller list after fire
Different editions of author’s 19th-century classic in five of top 10 slots on Amazon France
Notre Dame and the culture it inspired – from Matisse to the Muppets
It mesmerised Proust, terrified Homer Simpson and gave us the Hunchback – Guardian critics celebrate Paris’s gothic masterpiece at the heart of the modern imagination
January 2019
Quasimodo's comeback: Victor Hugo musical returns for second stab at UK
It is a stage sensation in France – not to mention Kazakhstan and Korea – but Notre Dame de Paris was panned by critics when it first hit London. Now it’s back, in the original French
December 2018
Les Misérables: episode by episode
Les Misérables episode one recap – it's the big muscle, magnificent trouser show!
How do you rewrite a story everyone knows? With Dominic West as the Incredible Hulk, Derek Jacobi as a pruning bishop – and the Tinder profile from hell
Books blog
Party tricks and naked writing: the eccentric life of Victor Hugo
Worshipped as a saint in Vietnam, beloved by the sex workers of Paris, with a party trick involving an orange – as Les Misérables comes to the BBC, let’s celebrate Hugo’s individualist spirit
Les Misérables' Andrew Davies: 'I haven't added much sex to it. Sorry to disappoint'
The book-to-TV adaptations to watch this Christmas, from Les Misérables to The Long Song
Les Misérables with 'contemporary relevance' to air on BBC
November 2018
From the Guardian archive
Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame reviewed – archive, 1923
20 November 1923 Quasimodo is always repellant and his disguise too good for us to make his character ours, says our critic
August 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 novels about riots
From Victor Hugo to JG Ballard, these incendiary books make readers co-conspirators in the insurrection they depict
April 2017
Proust's complaint about neighbours' loud sex among treasures in French sale
Letter from ‘jealous’ author, as well as another by Gustave Flaubert defending Madame Bovary will be sold from collection worth an estimated €3m
January 2017
Book of the day
The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables – review
The Novel of the Century by David Bellos review – the story of Les Misérables
October 2016
The Grinning Man review – Victor Hugo musical is wonderfully weird
Circus freaks, puppets and soaring songs collide in a new adaptation that deftly walks a tightrope between romantic and grotesque
