Book description
To mark the publication of Stop What You're Doing and Read
This!, a collection of essays celebrating reading, Vintage
Classics are releasing 12 limited edition themed ebook 'bundles', to
tempt readers to discover and rediscover great books.
THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
Imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, Edmond Dantès spends
fourteen bitter years in a dungeon. When his daring escape plan works
he uses all he has learnt during his incarceration to mastermind an
elaborate plan of revenge that will bring punishment to those he holds
responsible for his fate. No longer the naïve sailor who disappeared
into the dark fortress all those years ago, he reinvents himself as
the charming, mysterious and powerful Count of Monte Cristo...
LES MISERABLES
Sensational, dramatic, packed with rich excitement and filled with
the sweep and violence of human passions, Les Misérables is
one of the greatest adventure stories ever told. It is a novel peopled
by colourful characters from the nineteenth-century Parisian
underworld; the street children, the prostitutes and the criminals. In
telling the story of escaped convict Jean Valjean, and his efforts to
reform his ways and care for the little orphan girl he rescues from a
life of cruelty, Victor Hugo drew attention to the plight of the poor
and oppressed. Les Miserables is a masterful detective story, a
comic and tragic story of romance and revolution and, ultimately, a
tale of redemption and hope.
Alexandre Dumas was born on 24 July 1802 in Villers-Cotterêts
near Paris. His father, who was the son of a French marquis and a
former slave, died when Alexandre was three years old. He was brought
up by his mother and later moved to Paris to work as a clerk. He wrote
plays, travel books, children's stories and memoirs as well as novels
and was a keen traveller and cook. His most famous works are The
Three Musketeers (1844) and The Count of Monte Cristo
(1844-5). Alexandre Dumas died on 5 December 1870.
Victor Hugo was born on 26 February 1802 at Besançon, where
his father, an officer under Napoleon, was stationed. After his
parents separated in 1812, Hugo lived in Paris with his mother and
brothers. At twenty he married Adele Foucher and published his first
poetry collection. Hugo was elected to the Academie Francaise in 1841.
The accidental death two years later of his eldest daughter and her
husband devastated him and marked the end of his first literary
period. By then politics had become central to his life. Though he was
a Royalist in his youth, his views became increasingly liberal after
the July revolution of 1830. He initially supported Louis Napoleon,
but turned against him after being denied a role in government
following the coup d'état of 1851 and was forced into exile in
Brussels and Jersey. After the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, Hugo
returned to France and was re-elected to the National Assembly, and
then to the Senate. Hugo is celebrated as a politician, a social
campaigner, a poet and a novelist. His most famous works include Notre
Dame de Paris (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). Victor Hugo
died on 22 May 1885 and his state funeral was attended by thousands of mourners.
