23 h 9 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 23 h 9 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the face that makes crowds laugh hides a life they refuse to see?
On a freezing English shore, a boy with a permanent grin cut into his face finds a baby in the snow. Gwynplaine and the blind girl, Dea, grow up in the wagon of Ursus, a gruff showman, with his tame wolf, Homo. Their strange household offers warmth in a cruel world.
Gwynplaine becomes a fairground attraction, but his kindness matters more to Dea than his looks. Beyond their wagon, the court of Queen Anne watches with very different desires. In The Man Who Laughs, Victor Hugo brings love and spectacle into conflict with rank, ambition, and the secrets that powerful people exploit.
What you’ll discover
- A face beyond laughter Meet a gentle performer whose fixed grin conceals compassion, seriousness, and a longing to be understood.
- Love built on trust Follow Gwynplaine and Dea as their bond grows through kindness rather than appearances.
- A home on wheels Step into Ursus's wooden wagon, where grumbling wisdom and generosity give two orphans a family.
- The cruelty of rank Enter a court where pride, flattery, and hidden malice threaten the lives beyond its circle.
- Gothic sweep and feeling Find storms, sea adventure, and a fierce question about what a face can hide.
Who will love it
Readers who love grand adventure, orphans and outcasts, palace intrigue and passionate speeches about kings and the poor will find a rich companion here, with a tender love story at its center.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A man and a wolf share one van
- Child buyers cast one boy adrift
- The gibbet, the storm and the sinking ship
- A foundling and a blind baby find shelter
- A court of bored lords and one envious spy
- Gwynplaine and Dea play to the crowds
- A silent arrest leads to a sheriff's cell
- A lord's robes, a duchess and a mocking House
- The laugh is a mask and a wound
- Love sees what eyes cannot
Who’s who
- GwynplaineA boy sold and disfigured by child traders, now a fairground star with a fixed grin, who learns he is the heir of a lord.
- DeaA blind foundling raised in Ursus's van, who loves Gwynplaine for his soul and performs beside him in Chaos Vanquished.
- UrsusA grumbling travelling doctor and showman who hates mankind in words, yet raises two abandoned children as his own.
- HomoUrsus's tame wolf, gentle and loyal, who pulls the van and shares its life as the old man's companion.
- Duchess JosianaQueen Anne's proud, clever half-sister, bored by respect and drawn to scandal, who is promised in marriage to the Clancharlie heir.
- Lord David Dirry-MoirA dashing naval lord and fighter, holder of the Clancharlie title, who meets Gwynplaine in the Green Box crowd as a friend named Tom-Jim-Jack.
- BarkilphedroA creeping courtier and spy who serves both the queen and Josiana, and who wants only to do harm.
- Queen AnneThe stout, quick-tempered ruler who enjoys a mischievous scheme and resents her younger half-sister's beauty.
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The Man Who Laughs: A Romance of English History
by Victor Hugo · 1869
A fairground clown with a face carved into a grin is arrested at dawn and told he is a peer of England.
ChallengingOver 20 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
Why would a man who claims to hate the whole human race still cure every sick stranger who knocks on his door? That is Ursus, a travelling doctor and juggler who shares a wheeled hut with a tame wolf named Homo.
The Man Who Laughs: A Romance of English History at a glance
- Reading time
- About 13 h 20 min10 h 35 min fast, 15 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 190,900 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1869by Victor Hugo
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A man and a wolf share one van
Ursus is a doctor, a juggler, a ventriloquist and a self-declared hater of mankind, and his best friend is a wolf. He named the wolf Homo, the Latin word for man, and kept Ursus, the Latin word for bear, for himself. Together they work fairs and village greens, where Homo politely collects coins in a bowl held in his mouth.
Ursus calls himself a dealer in superstitions. Yet he cannot live up to his own scorn. When a poor man is dying of hunger, Ursus hands over every penny he has and growls at him to go on living.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1869
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 15 h 0 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Hugo, Victor. The Man Who Laughs: A Romance of English History. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-man-who-laughs-a-romance-of-english-history.
Hugo, V. (2026). The man who laughs: A romance of English history. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-man-who-laughs-a-romance-of-english-history (Original work published 1869)
Hugo, Victor. The Man Who Laughs: A Romance of English History. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-man-who-laughs-a-romance-of-english-history.
@book{hugo2026man,
author = {Hugo, Victor},
title = {The Man Who Laughs: A Romance of English History},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-man-who-laughs-a-romance-of-english-history},
note = {First published 1869}
}
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What is The Man Who Laughs about?
It follows Gwynplaine, a boy sold to child traders and disfigured with a permanent grin. He grows up as a fairground performer, loves a blind girl named Dea, and then discovers he is a peer of England.
Who is Ursus and why is his companion a wolf?
Ursus is a travelling doctor and showman who raises Gwynplaine and Dea. His wolf, Homo, pulls the van and shares his life, and their names, bear and man, play on who is truly the beast.
What are the Comprachicos in the novel?
The Comprachicos are wandering child buyers who shape children into clowns and dwarfs for sale to courts. Hugo presents them as a symbol of how the powerful use the weak for amusement.
The author
Victor Hugo
1802–1885 · French novelist, poet and playwright
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was a French novelist, poet, dramatist and politician. He was born in Besançon and died in Paris. He wrote The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), Les Misérables (1862) and The Contemplations (1856). He lived in exile in Jersey and Guernsey between 1852 and 1870.
More by Victor Hugo
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