ABSTRACT
When Les Misérables began appearing worldwide in serial form on 3 April 1862, the United States were far from united: 11 of 34 states had seceded over the previous 14 months, and a bloody civil war ensued that would last another three years. Yet nationwide, where the literacy rate among white American adults had reached about 95% by 1850, the public devoured Hugo’s novel.1 Amid all the strife and disarray, sales of the work did exceptionally well, continuing briskly into the end of the century and beyond. As we contemplate Hugo’s monumental prose masterpiece 150 years after it appeared, we might well wonder what accounted for its extreme popularity early on and how it eventually became not just a classic but also part of the American national consciousness. After all, it was a foreign import, a French book no less, and thus seemingly removed from the pioneer ethos and frontier mentality of the US.
