Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge the permission from the Gale Research Company of Detroit, Michigan, to reproduce elements of Chapter Eight, “The Masterpiece,” from my book Victor Hugo (New York: Twayne/Macmillan, 1999), which form a portion of the preface to this edition of Les Misérables. Marjorie Porter helped substantially to clarify my writing, and John Rauk, the current Chair of Romance and Classical Languages at Michigan State University, kindly allowed me to defer one course from spring 2003 to next year, which made it possible to complete this edition—as well as tracking down an allusion from Horace.