The Victor Hugo in Guernsey Society
Miss Miz:
Cosette, the Face of Les Misérables
An Illustrated Talk by Dr. Bradley Stephens
Saturday 20th May 2017
Princess Royal Centre for the Performing Arts. 7.30pm - 9.15pm
Tickets £6 from Guernseytickets.gg - Society Members £5
On the 20th May The Victor Hugo in Guernsey Society will be presenting an evening at the
Princess Royal Centre where Dr Bradley Stephens, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Lead in French
Studies at the Faculty of Arts, University of Bristol will give a talk about Victor Hugo’s heroine.
By the 21st century Cosette had become the ‘face’ of ‘Les Misérables’, but what can the character of Cosette
tell us about how Victor Hugo’s most famous work has been read and adapted since it was completed in
Guernsey in the early 1860s? As the poster girl for Boublil and Schönberg’s wildly popular stage musical
adaptation, Cosette has become emblematic of Les Misérables as a story of romance and revolution, yet her
cossetted role as a female character and her rags-to-riches tale have also been criticised for promoting a
socially and economically conservative order.
In this talk, Hugo specialist Bradley Stephens from the University of Bristol looks at over a century and a half
of the novel’s afterlife as one of the most adapted works in literary history and asks what really lies behind the
face of Les Misérables.
Dr Stephens specialises in French literary culture from the 19c onwards with particular interests
in the life and works of Victor Hugo, in multimedia adaptation, reception theory and gender.
He has written; Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre and the Liability of Liberty and ‘Les Misérables’ and
its Afterlives: Between Page, Stage and Screen.
Victor Hugo Park Bench Sculpture for St. Peter Port
Project launch by Trevor Wakefield
Artistic description by Mark Cook
This will also be linked with a presentation by Trevor Wakefield on his project to produce a statue
of Hugo sitting on a park bench, reading Toilers of the Sea, all in bronze and already agreed with
the Town Constables to be next to the Town Church looking out to sea.
Further details from Roy Bisson: 07781 100 296, [email protected].
Honorary Secretary: Le Caprice, Cobo Coast Road, Castel, Guernsey, Channel Islands, GY5 7HE
Telephone: 07781 100 296. Email: [email protected] Registered Charity number: CH507
Bankers: HSBC Bank plc. Sort code: 40-22-25. Account number: 04411242
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