Fredric March and Cedric Hardwicke in Les Misérables (1935)

Congratulations on reading one of the great works of world literature! Whether you finished Les Misérables early, on time, or not yet, thank you for participating. I hope the read-along was as enriching for you as it was for me. (If you liked the experience of reading classic literature in one chapter a day, please consider joining the 2019 Chapter-a-Day Read-along.)

You now know some of the most memorable characters in literature: Jean Valjean. Fantine. Cosette. Javert. The Thenardiers. Eponine. Gavroche. Marius. The Friends of the ABC.

My hope is that your reading of Les Misérables will make a positive difference in your life. At the beginning of the novel we looked at Hugo’s own purpose for writing Les Misérables. Here it is again, and you can judge for yourself if he succeeded:

I want to destroy human inevitability. I condemn slavery, I chase out poverty, I instruct ignorance, I treat illness, I light up the night, I hate hatred. That is what I am and that is why I have written The Wretched. As I see it, The Wretched is nothing other than a book having fraternity as its foundation and progress as its summit.

Please feel free to use the comments section below to leave your thoughts about the book and/or about reading it in one chapter a day.

As for me, after spending a little time each of the last 365 days with Victor Hugo’s grand novel, the last line of the book perfectly expresses how the read-along ended:

It came about simply, of itself,
As night follows when the day is ended.