The Man who Laughs

The Man Who Laughs (first published in 1869) is Victor Hugo's scathing indictment of the injustice and inequality within Britain's political system. It is the story of Gwynplaine, the two-year-old heir to a rebel lord, who is abducted upon the orders of a vindictive monarch, and whose face is mutilated into a permanent grisly grin, then abandoned. After years of living in poverty, Gwynplaine is reintroduced to the aristocratic life and resolves to become the voice of the voiceless, whether he is heard or not.