A man steals a loaf of bread and spends nineteen years in prison, and from that single act of desperation Victor Hugo built a novel vast enough to contain the sewers of Paris, the barricades of 1832, and a meditation on mercy that has not been surpassed. Published in 1862, it follows Jean Valjean from convict to mayor to saint, pursued always by Javert, the inspector whose devotion to law cannot accommodate grace. Hugo wrote with the conviction that literature must serve the wretched of the earth, and his digressions are the book's secret architecture: every detour returns to whether a society deserves to survive if it cannot forgive. The answer is Valjean's life, a cathedral built from suffering and love.