In many ways, the best translation is the one that you enjoy. You can likely figure that out by reading the same pages from different editions online or in bookstores. Since languages are, of course, not directly equivalent, translation is as much an art as a skill, and translators have their individual ethos and goals in rendering a text in another language. Translation is difficult for many reasons, including the fact that “a good translation needs to be true to the original and able to stand on its own for a new audience,” as explained in a 2008 NPR story. And, of course, the situation in which you are reading might make an online version or a (relatively!) lightweight paperback preferable for practical reasons.
That said—and remembering that choosing a translation is to a certain extent a matter of personal taste—here is a list of major translations of Les Misérables, with some of the reasons why I would recommend first Donougher’s, then either Rose’s or Fahnestock and MacAfee’s, then Denny’s, and, finally, Wilbour’s—but only for people who like to read nineteenth-century American style:
Christine Donougher, translator. London & New York: Penguin Books, 2015. I find Donougher’s translation to be engaging, modern, and accurate. Reading this edition, I did not need to turn back to Hugo’s original novel in order to see what the translator was trying to express. In addition, Donougher’s detailed historical, cultural, and literary notes greatly help readers understand Hugo’s many references.
Julie Rose, translator. New York: Modern Library, 2009. Rose offers a very lively translation, one that some readers at times find slangy and wilder than Hugo’s original. Rose has been quoted as saying, “Translation is rewriting—as someone you imagine the writer to be,” and I find that her translation is often fairly distant from my understanding of Hugo’s original work. This edition includes helpful detailed historical, cultural, and literary notes by James Madden.
Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee, translators. New York: Signet Classics / Penguin Random House, 2013. Because this classic translation is based on Wilbour’s 1862 translation, which is largely faithful to Hugo’s work, it captures Hugo’s story fairly accurately, although with less style than Rose’s or Donougher’s. This edition contains a few errors of translation and more than a few moments in which I had to turn back to Hugo’s original. Sometimes called “the brick” because of its size and shape, this translation unfortunately contains no informational notes.
Norman Denny, translator. London & New York: Penguin Classics, 1982. A somewhat abridged translation that many find appealing, but some sentences are shortened or simplified, some paragraphs eliminated, and Hugo’s provocative section on slang and the criminal world (IV, 7, 1-4) shunted off to an appendix. The informational footnotes from the French edition by Marius-François Guyard are useful but far too rare.
Charles Wilbour, translator. London: Everyman’s Library, 1998. Also published in an abridged edition by New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1996; 2003. This is the first American 1862 translation, generally considered quite faithful to Hugo’s original but sounding dated in ways that Hugo’s novel does not. Some readers like Wilbour’s style.
Isabel Hapgood, translator. A translation from 1887 published in various formats. Very dated in its style and too often showing a true lack of understanding of French (tu, for instance, is not “thou”), Hapgood’s translation includes too many senseless renderings of Hugo’s French. Like Wilbour’s Hapgood’s translation continues to be published in a variety of formats, as it is free of copyright. Many readers enjoy Hapgood’s translation.
If you’d like more opinions, Goodreads readers have shared thoughts about their favorite translations.
A practical note: Editions fall out of print, but you can often find a used copy online through sites such as these: Bookfinder / Biblio / AbeBooks / Alibris. For more possibilities, see this 2013 article from Empty Mirror.
Happy reading! I’d love to hear how Les Misérables affects you!
Finally, I offer this suggestion about tackling this epic novel, whose very length seems to daunt some readers:
If you feel bogged down by the section about the battle of Waterloo (or by any other of Hugo’s more philosophical explorations), skip—in the case of “Waterloo”—to the last chapter in that Book, “The Battlefield at Night.” That chapter has a key plot element in it—plus, Hugo does an amazing job of creating atmosphere—so you don’t want to miss it. The other 28 chapters in that Book are highly relevant to the novel’s major themes (as are Hugo’s sections about convents, criminals’ slang, and the Paris sewer system), but they can seem heavy to first-time readers. They feel like digressions, although they really are not. So I recommend that you enjoy and learn from them, if you can, but don’t let them keep you from the characters and the plot!