Les Miserables An Engaging Visual Journey – Victor Hugo

Les Miserables A Visual Journey
Les Miserables: An Engaging Visual Journey by Victor Hugo, Jim And Kraus, Jill De Haan, Margaret Ferrec, Chiara Fedele
Also by this author: The Moon Speaks
Published by Tyndale on February 9, 2021
Genres: Fiction, Novelization
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five-stars

Les Miserables is a story of compassion, forgiveness, justice, and the will to survive amid the shadow of turmoil and revolution. For the first time, Victor Hugo's masterpiece is a mixed-media special edition complete with French-inspired watercolor paintings, decorative hand-lettering, vintage imagery, and space for journaling and reflection. As you read and connect with this unique, artfully-designed Visual Journey, its pages become a canvas on which to chronicle your own story, struggles, and personal triumphs. Since its first publication in 1862, Les Miserables has inspired millions of people to embrace sacrificial agape love and kindness, and to extend care and compassion to the poor and marginalized. Abridged edition.

Les Miserables is a beautifully poignant story of love and freedom that has lasted through the ages. From the first time it was published by Victor Hugo until today, it has enjoyed continuous success in many different editions, in many different forms, the latest of which is this new visual journey from Tyndale House Publishing. Inside the pages of this perfect coffee table book are French-inspired watercolor paintings, a timeline of the characters, gorgeous hand lettering, vintage type images, quotes from both Hugo and Scripture, and space for journaling. It’s truly stunning.

This edition is abridged, of course, but it includes all the major parts of the story and even more than what was to be expected. You truly get a feel for the entire novel through the visual aspect, something you don’t normally get with abridged books. It’s put together nicely enough that it could be given as a beautiful gift for a collector as well. And it could also make a great gift for an older teenager that might be interested in the story but who is intimidated by the original 800+ page novel. With this edition hitting at 176 pages, it’s a perfect compromise for anyone who is on the fence to read the story.

This beautiful new engaging Visual Journey has to be my personal favorite edition of Les Mis that I’ve seen. Not only does it have a gorgeous cover, but the entire story is easy to read and doesn’t take away from the original. It was written in a way where it was still Les Mis, but without filler. The editors also retain the tone and language of the original, really making it feel authentic to the time period.

Personally, I used Les Miserables: An Engaging Visual Journey for a book club meeting and I didn’t feel like I missed anything at all. And coming from someone who had only seen the Broadway play and also the movie, it was like adding a whole new context into the story. In the movie and the play, there are multiple things and characters that are left out so now I was able to see Les Miserables in a whole new light. My personal favorite thing was all the Bible verses in this edition. This story has inspired so many people to give sacrificial love like Jean ValJean in the book so I loved the Bible verses they chose as well.

Overall this was an amazing edition to a classic novel and I hope to see more engaging visual journeys from Tyndale soon.

five-stars