Les Misérables1887 · public domain
The free, complete standard. Isabel Hapgood’s 1887 version keeps all of Hugo, digressions and all, and follows him closely, so it is the dependable no-cost way to read the whole novel. It is unmistakably Victorian: the diction is formal and a little stiff, Hugo’s big rhetorical set-pieces come through in an elevated older English, and the slang of the sewers and the barricades loses some of its bite. Modern translations read more naturally. But for the entire book, faithfully rendered and free, Hapgood remains the reliable public-domain choice.