Les Miserables

Jennifer Bassett

Oxford Bookworms LibraryLevel 1

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.

Jennifer Bassett

Les MisГ©rables

LES MISÉRABLES

France in the 1830s. The rich ride in carriages, and eat from gold plates. The poor have no work, no food, no hope – they are Les Misérables, and rebellion is in the air. France remembers the French Revolution in 1789, when the people built barricades in the streets of Paris, and the dead were counted in thousands. Is that time coming again?

This is the story of Jean Valjean. A prisoner for nineteen years, now at last he is a free man. But how can he live, where can he find work? What hope is there for a man like him? It is also the story of Javert, a police inspector, a cruel man, a hard man. He wants one thing in life – to send Valjean back to prison. And it is Fantine’s story too, Fantine and her daughter Cosette. How does their story change Valjean’s life? And it is also Marius’s story. He is a student in Paris, ready to die for the rebellion – or for love. And last, there is Gavroche – a boy of the Paris streets, with no home, no family, no shoes … but a boy with a smile on his face and a song in his heart.

But we begin with Jean Valjean …

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First published in Oxford Bookworms 2012

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ISBN: 978 0 19 479440 4

A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of Les MisГ©rables is available in an audio pack. ISBN: 0 19 479439 8

Printed in China

Word count (main text): 7,302 words

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Illustrationsby: Georgio Bacchin

e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 463015 3

e-Book first published 2014

Chapter 1

Jean Valjean

FOREWORD

It is the year 1796, and the people of France are hungry. Not the rich people, of course. They have food, they have warm clothes, they have beautiful houses. No, it is the poor people of France …

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