Richmond, Virginia publisher West & Johnston soon began circulating their own edition based on a pirated version of Wilbour’s translation. God grant the battle may do as much harm to the Rebels as Waterloo did to the French.” Īs popular as the book was in the north, it’s possible that it was even more popular in the Confederacy. Wilky James (44 th and 54 th Massachusetts) was one such soldier, writing in 1863, “Today is Sunday and I’ve been reading Hugo’s account of Waterloo in ‘Les Miserables’ and preparing my mind for something of the same sort. Union soldiers gobbled them up and carried them to battle. The volumes, which were printed on colorful broadsides, could be had for a nickel or dime, and sales ran into the hundreds of thousands. Within a few months, American audiences were devouring a five-volume serialized version, translated by renowned classicist Charles E. Hugo’s epic story about Jean Valjean was translated into various languages and spread across the globe. Readers couldn’t get enough of the novel. But critical analysis and popularity with consumers don’t always go hand-in-hand.

When Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables was first published in the spring of 1862, it was panned by critics. This version was specifically censored for Southern audiences and was distributed to Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.

Cover page from the 1863 West & Johnston translation of Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables.

Les miserables 1862