For the world to be a better place for women -- and also, by the way, for men, and for young people -- it will need to become a place where the main thrust of our work and our pleasure is conceived not as an act of plunder, but of something else.

When he began to publish his novel Les Misérables, Victor Hugo orchestrated a characteristically savvy publicity campaign.

There, at a remote, decrepit, and inconspicuous location with crumbling walls, with a small corner room partitioned off for Cosette, the pair -- prison-hardened man and frightened child -- would enjoy for a while the first warm affection that either had known.

With a glance across his right shoulder at the tall Observatory, rising above a light mantle of snow, Valjean loses no further time in starting down the quick easterly pitch of the short Rue Cassin.

The first of a series of walks by the translator of the first complete, modern edition of Victor Hugo's great novel, Les Misérables. Walk one: Jean Valjean leads Cosette to their first Paris home.

By Emily Temple for Flavorwire: We tend to put our favorite authors on a pedestal, and in some ways when we do that, we turn them into characters t...