Les Misérables2008
The bold, talkative one. Julie Rose translates Hugo into vivid, thoroughly modern, sometimes slangy English and is not shy about it, with more than a hundred pages of notes to back her choices. Admirers find it the liveliest, most immediate Les Misérables in English; detractors think the contemporary idiom and the occasional anachronism pull against Hugo’s period voice. Either way it is complete and never dull. Choose Rose if you want the novel to crackle and do not mind a translator with a strong, audible personality.