{"id":1329,"date":"2012-12-31T22:40:27","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T06:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/delightfilledart.wordpress.com\/?p=1329"},"modified":"2016-01-24T20:56:03","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T04:56:03","slug":"victor-hugos-les-miserables-antique-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nancyduckhildebrand.com\/?p=1329","title":{"rendered":"Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables"},"content":{"rendered":"

The whirlwind pace of the new Les Mis\u00c3\u00a9rables movie inspired me to pull out my books to re-read the novel. I noticed my English copies are starting to fall apart, and I became curious what year they were printed. I started looking around the internet and came across someone else’s post on the same topic. In fact if you look at the link, his book looks very similar to mine.<\/p>\n

And I am excited that this post finally led me to some information that will help me put a date on my own copy. A link <\/a>about the company A L Burt says that the company had different addresses over the course of their operation, from 1883-1937. The address on my book below was apparently from 1900-1912. So there you go, it is at least 100 years old.<\/p>\n

I would like to purchase a new, unabridged version in a readable translation – any suggestions on the best edition?<\/p>\n

To give an idea of other things going on in my great grandmother’s household around the time theses books were published, I took a photo of a few of my postcards:<\/p>\n

The top left one was sent on Dec. 22, 1908 at 10:30 pm to my great great grandmother by her grown child. The top right was received by my great grandmother, about a year before she got married, sent Dec. 20, 1908 at 3 pm from Toronto. The bottom one I find particularly special. It was sent to my 3-year-old grandfather on Dec. 20, 1923. I have a 3-year-old son, so it is fun picturing what my grandpa was like at that age, receiving this card. The front of it reads, “To A Nice Little Boy Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! May old Santa with his presents Fill your heart with joy.”<\/p>\n

These Les Mis\u00c3\u00a9rables books belonged to grandpa’s sister at some point in her life, but I am not sure where she got them from and at what point. Her name is written in the front in pencil.<\/p>\n

My French set came from an antique bookstore in Toronto, when my husband (then beau) picked them up for me. I started reading this one last night, but noticed it too is falling apart. And while I was surprised that I can understand almost every word of it, I may get tired of reading it in French at some point.<\/p>\n

I am not sure of the date of these volumes either, but a brief glance at a website about this publisher in French shows that they published from the address in my book from 1911-1925, so it would have been from around the same period.<\/p>\n