There’s nothing new about dismissive critical attitudes towards Les Misérables. Whatever the incarnation (text, musical, film), the enlightened response to Victor Hugo’s tale has been condescension. The hostility at first ranged from George Sand’s “Too much Christianity,” or Baudelaire’s “A vile and inept book,” to Rimbaud’s mother blaming it on corrupting her son.

The Vatican, of course, banned the “socialist tract,” which was publicly burned in Spain. Leading critics engaged in with the ultimate critical insult: silence. But when the book was first published it was a massive public success. Thousands of copies were sold to those who could afford the installments and lending libraries sprouted up among workers who couldn’t.

Move forward 120 years and a similar bifurcation between critics and audience opened when Les Misérables became a mega-musical in the early 1980s. What began as a concept album composed by French songwriters was staged in a Parisian arena in 1980 for a half million spectators. Five years later, a much modified version of these songs — now with English lyrics, a tighter plot and a heftier dose of religion — would open in London to mostly negative and hostile reviews, but the run sold out in a few days. By now 60 million have seen the musical, nothing close to a blockbuster film’s audience, but an impressive number given the ticket prices demanded by the genre.