'Written with clarity and wit; at once erudite and entertaining ... Bellos restores Les Mis to its maker and his times' Economist The Novel of the Century brings to life the extraordinary story of how Victor Hugo managed to write his novel of the downtrodden despite a revolution, a coup d'etat and political exile; how he pulled off the deal of the century to get it published, and set it on course to become the novel that epitomizes the grand sweep of history in the nineteenth century. Placing a century of scholarship into narrative form and packed full of information about the background and design of Les Miserables, this biography of a masterpiece nonetheless insists that the moral and social message of Hugo's ever-popular novel is just as important for our century as it was for its own.