Other editions of book The Man Who Laughs

"The Man Who Laughs" tells of a facially disfigured boy, Gwynplaine, who is taken in by a carnival vendor and performs at fairs in England. It is later discovered that there is more to his past than meets the eye...Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colourful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes a biography of Victor Hugo, theme discussions and study questions, which can be used both in the classroom and at home to further engage the reader in the story.The Classics Illustrated comic book series began in 1941 with its first issue, Alexandre Dumas’s "The Three Musketeers", and has since included over 200 classic tales released around the world. This new CCS Books edition is specifically tailored to engage and educate young readers with some of the greatest works ever written, while still thrilling older readers who have loving memories of this series of old.

"The Man Who Laughs" ("L'Homme qui Rit") was called by its author "A Romance of English History," and was written during the period Hugo spent in exile in Guernsey. Like "The Toilers of the Sea," its immediate predecessor, the main theme of the story is human heroism, confronted with the superhuman tyranny of blind chance. As a passionate cry on behalf of the tortured and deformed, and the despised and oppressed of the world, "The Man Who Laughs" is irresistible. Of it Hugo himself says in the preface: "The true title of this book should be "Aristocracy'"—inasmuch as it was intended as an arraignment of the nobility for their vices, crimes, and selfishness. "The Man Who Laughs" was first published in 1869.

Ursus and Homo were fast friends. Ursus was a man, Homo a wolf. Their dispositions tallied. It was the man who had christened the wolf: probably he had also chosen his own name. Having found Ursus fit for himself, he had found Homo fit for the beast. Man and wolf turned their partnership to account at fairs, at village fêtes, at the corners of streets where passers-by throng, and out of the need which people seem to feel everywhere to listen to idle gossip and to buy quack medicine. The wolf, gentle and courteously subordinate, diverted the crowd. It is a pleasant thing to behold the tameness of animals. Our greatest delight is to see all the varieties of domestication parade before us. This it is which collects so many folks on the road of royal processions.

One of author Victor Hugo's most controversial and most celebrated works, The Man Who Laughs is loaded with intrigue and suspense. This love story centers on a man whose face has been disfigured into a laughing mask in childhood, and a loyal blind girl who gives him her heart, amidst the cruelty of the privileged aristocracy whose laughingstock and savior the man becomes, is remarkable in its emotional impact. Hugo wrote The Man Who Laughs over a period of fifteen months while he was living in the Channel Islands, having been exiled from his native France because of the controversial political content of his previous novels.Optimized for Kindle devices and featuring Panel Zoom facility.From its beginnings in the 1940’s to today, Classics Illustrated continues to encourage a love of reading and adventure in youthful minds through beautifully-illustrated comic book adaptations of the world’s most beloved stories by the world’s greatest authors.A collection of Classics Illustrated books is an inviting start to any young person’s library.