An insightful and decisive angle on a hot topic: should we rewrite the classics?

By delving into the editorial adventure and fate of Les Misérables in France and around the world, Tiphaine Samoyault observes that, from the outset and during its author’s lifetime, this classic was segmented, stripped down, retitled, abridged, illustrated, adapted – in short, appropriated. As a result, the very notion of an original work is called into question. The transformation of the source text seems to be a characteristic rite of passage of a classic, as each era and each genre reshapes it to its own tastes, which are constantly evolving.