Yankee Doodle Dandy gp4 Gutiar Pro Tab is free to download. Tablature file Yankee Doodle Dandy opens by means of the Guitar PRO program.

This is tabbed for a 24 hole Echo Celeste tremolo

6 -5 -5 5 -4 5 -5 -3 -5 -5 6 -5 -4 -3
I’m a Yankee doodle dandy, a Yankee doodle do
4 5 6 6 6 5 -5 6 7 -6 6 -5
Or die. A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam,
6 -5 5 -3 5 6 -5 -5 6 -5 -5 5
Born on the fourth of July. I’ve got a Yankee
-4 5 -5 -3 -5 6 -5 -4 -3 4 5
Doodle sweet heart, she’s my Yankee doodle joy.
5 5 -5 6 5 6 -5 4 5 5 -5 6
Yankee doodle came to London just to ride the
5 4 -3 -5 -3 -4 5 -5 -4 5
Ponies, I am a Yankee doodle boy.

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6
I’m the kid that’s all the candy.

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6
I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.

-6 -8 -6 -8 -7 9 -8 9
I’m glad I am–So’s Uncle Sam.

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6
I’m a real live Yankee Doodle–

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6
Made my name and fame and boodle.

7 7 -88 -9 8
Just like Mr. Doodle

-8 7 -7 -8 6 -8 7 7
did by riding on a pony.

6 7 7 7 -8 8 -9 9 9 98
I love to listen to the Dixie strain;

-10 9 8 -9 8 -8 7 -8 7 -6 7
I long to see the girl I left behind me–

7 -7 9 -7 9 -9 -8 7 9 8 9
And that ain’t no josh, she’s a Yankee by gosh.

98 7 8 9 10
Oh, say can you see

-87 -7 9 -9 9 -10 9 -7 8 -8 7
Anything about a Yankee that is phony.

8 -8 -8 7 -7 7 -8 -6
I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,

-8 -8 8 -8-7 -6 6 7
a Yankee Doodle do or die–

8 8 8 8 -9 9 9 -98 -8
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam,

8 -8 7 -6 -7 7-8
born on the 4th of July.

8 8 -8 -8 7 -7 7 -8 -6
I’ve got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart

-8 8 -8 -7 -6 6 7
She’s my Yankee Doodle joy.

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6
Yankee Doodle came to London,

7 7 -8 8 7 6
just to ride the ponies.

-6-8 -6 -7 7 -8 8 7
I am that Yankee Doodle Boy

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6 7 7 -8 8 7 -7
7 7 -8 8 -9 8 -8 7 -7 6 -6 -7 7 7
-6 6 -6 6 -6 -7 7 7 6 -6 6 -5 5 6
-6 6 -6 6 -6 -7 7 6 -6 6 -6 -7 7 7

7 7 7 -7 -7 -7 -6 -7 -6 5
Heave a pawl, o heave away
-6 -7 -6 6 5
weigh hey, roll and go!
5 6 6 6 6
The anchor’s on board
-5 5 -4 -4 -4 -4
and the cable’s all stored
4 -4 5 5 5 5 -4 4 -3 -3”
To be rollicking Randy Dandy-O!

FINE AND DANDY BARBARA STREISAND

KEY C

-6b 6 7 5 6 -5b -5b
Please for-give this pla-ti-tude

-5b 5 6 4 5 5 -4
But I like your at-ti-tude

4 5 6 -6b -6b -6 7 -6b 6
You are just the kind I’ve had in mind,

-6b -6b -5b 5
Nev-er could find

-6b 6 7 5 6 -5b -5b
Hon-ey, I’m so keen on you

-5b 5 6 4 5 -4 -4
I could come to lean on you

4 5 -6b -6 -6
Hon-or and o-bey

-7 -7 -5b 6
Give you your way

-6 -6b 4 4
Do what you say

REFRAIN

5 -4 -5b -5b -4 -6b -6b
Gee, it’s all fine and dan-dy

5 -4 -5b -5b
Su-gar can-dy,

-4 -6b -5b 7
When I’ve got you

7 -6 -6 7 -6b -5b -4 -4 -4
Then I on-ly see the sun-ny side

-6 -6b 7 -6 6 5 4 4 4
E-ven trou-ble has its fun-ny side

5 -4 -5b -5b -4 -6b -6b
When you’re gone, su-gar can-dy

5 -4 -5b -5b -4 -6b -5b 7
I get lone-some, I get so blue

-6 6 -7 -7
When you’re han-dy

-6b 7 6 -6 -6
It’s fine and dan-dy

-5b -6b -5b -6b
But when you’re gone

-5b -6b -6b -5b
What can I do?

ENJOY!!!

Les Misérables (/leɪ ˌmɪzəˈrɑːbəl, –blə/, French: [le mizeʁabl(ə)]) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.

In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title. However, several alternatives have been used, including The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims and The Dispossessed. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.

Examining the nature of law and grace, the novel elaborates upon the history of France, the architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Les Misérables has been popularized through numerous adaptations for film, television and the stage, including a musical.

Novel form

Upton Sinclair described the novel as “one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world”, and remarked that Hugo set forth the purpose of Les Misérables in the Preface:

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Towards the end of the novel, Hugo explains the work’s overarching structure:

The book which the reader has before him at this moment is, from one end to the other, in its entirety and details … a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from corruption to life; from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. The starting point: matter, destination: the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end.

The novel contains various subplots, but the main thread is the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean, who becomes a force for good in the world but cannot escape his criminal past. The novel is divided into five volumes, each volume divided into several books, and subdivided into chapters, for a total of 48 books and 365 chapters. Each chapter is relatively short, commonly no longer than a few pages.

The novel as a whole is one of the longest ever written, with 655,478 words in the original French. Hugo explained his ambitions for the novel to his Italian publisher:

I don’t know whether it will be read by everyone, but it is meant for everyone. It addresses England as well as Spain, Italy as well as France, Germany as well as Ireland, the republics that harbour slaves as well as empires that have serfs. Social problems go beyond frontiers. Humankind’s wounds, those huge sores that litter the world, do not stop at the blue and red lines drawn on maps. Wherever men go in ignorance or despair, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children lack a book to learn from or a warm hearth, Les Misérables knocks at the door and says: “open up, I am here for you”.

Digressions

More than a quarter of the novel—by one count 955 of 2,783 pages—is devoted to essays that argue a moral point or display Hugo’s encyclopedic knowledge but do not advance the plot, nor even a subplot, a method Hugo used in such other works as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Toilers of the Sea. One biographer noted that “the digressions of genius are easily pardoned”. The topics Hugo addresses include cloistered religious orders, the construction of the Paris sewers, argot, and the street urchins of Paris. The one about convents he titles “Parenthesis” to alert the reader to its irrelevance to the story line.

Hugo devotes another 19 chapters (Volume II, Book I) to an account of—and a meditation on the place in history of—the Battle of Waterloo, the battlefield which Hugo visited in 1861 and where he finished writing the novel. It opens volume 2 with such a change of subject as to seem the beginning of an entirely different work. The fact that this ‘digression’ occupies such a large part of the text demands that it be read in the context of the ‘overarching structure’ discussed above. Hugo draws his own personal conclusions, taking Waterloo to be a pivot-point in history, but definitely not a victory for the forces of reaction.

Waterloo, by cutting short the demolition of European thrones by the sword, had no other effect than to cause the revolutionary work to be continued in another direction. The slashers have finished; it was the turn of the thinkers. The century that Waterloo was intended to arrest has pursued its march. That sinister victory was vanquished by liberty.

One critic has called this “the spiritual gateway” to the novel, as its chance encounter of Thénardier and Colonel Pontmercy foreshadows so many of the novel’s encounters “blending chance and necessity”, a “confrontation of heroism and villainy”.

Even when not turning to other subjects outside his narrative, Hugo sometimes interrupts the straightforward recitation of events, his voice and control of the story line unconstrained by time and sequence. The novel opens with a statement about the bishop of Digne in 1815 and immediately shifts: “Although these details in no way essentially concern that which we have to tell…” Only after 14 chapters does Hugo pick up the opening thread again, “In the early days of the month of October, 1815…”, to introduce Jean Valjean.

Hugo’s sources

An incident Hugo witnessed in 1829 involved three strangers and a police officer. One of the strangers was a man who had stolen a loaf of bread, similar to Jean Valjean. The officer was taking him to the coach. The thief also saw the mother and daughter playing with each other which would be an inspiration for Fantine and Cosette. Hugo imagined the life of the man in jail and the mother and daughter taken away from each other.

Valjean’s character is loosely based on the life of the ex-convict Eugène François Vidocq. Vidocq became the head of an undercover police unit and later founded France’s first private detective agency. He was also a businessman and was widely noted for his social engagement and philanthropy. Vidocq also inspired Hugo’s “Claude Gueux” and Le Dernier jour d’un condamné (The Last Day of a Condemned Man).

In 1828, Vidocq, already pardoned, saved one of the workers in his paper factory by lifting a heavy cart on his shoulders as Valjean does. Hugo’s description of Valjean rescuing a sailor on the Orion drew almost word for word on a Baron La Roncière’s letter describing such an incident. Hugo used Bienvenu de Miollis (1753–1843), the Bishop of Digne during the time in which Valjean encounters Myriel, as the model for Myriel.

Hugo had used the departure of prisoners from the Bagne of Toulon in one of his early stories, Le Dernier Jour d’un Condamné. He went to Toulon to visit the Bagne in 1839 and took extensive notes, though he did not start writing the book until 1845. On one of the pages of his notes about the prison, he wrote in large block letters a possible name for his hero: “JEAN TRÉJEAN”. When the book was finally written, Tréjean became Valjean.

In 1841, Hugo saved a prostitute from arrest for a*sault. He used a short part of his dialogue with the police when recounting Valjean’s rescue of Fantine in the novel. On 22 February 1846, when he had begun work on the novel, Hugo witnessed the arrest of a bread thief while a duchess and her child watched the scene pitilessly from their coach. He spent several vacations in Montreuil-sur-Mer.

During the 1832 revolt, Hugo walked the streets of Paris, saw the barricades blocking his way at points, and had to take shelter from gunfire. He participated more directly in the 1848 Paris insurrection, helping to smash barricades and suppress both the popular revolt and its monarchist allies.

Victor Hugo drew his inspiration from everything he heard and saw, writing it down in his diary. In December 1846, he witnessed an altercation between an old woman scavenging through rubbish and a street urchin who might have been Gavroche. He also informed himself by personal inspection of the Paris Conciergerie in 1846 and Waterloo in 1861, by gathering information on some industries, and on working-class people’s wages and living standards. He asked his mistresses, Léonie d’Aunet and Juliette Drouet, to tell him about life in convents. He also slipped personal anecdotes into the plot. For instance Marius and Cosette’s wedding night (Part V, Book 6, Chapter 1) takes place on 16 February 1833, which is also the date when Hugo and his lifelong mistress Juliette Drouet made love for the first time.

Plot

Volume I: Fantine

The story begins in 1815 in Digne, as the peasant Jean Valjean, just released from 19 years’ imprisonment in the Bagne of Toulon—five for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family and fourteen more for numerous escape attempts—is turned away by innkeepers because his yellow passport marks him as a former convict. He sleeps on the street, angry and bitter.

Digne’s benevolent Bishop Myriel gives him shelter. At night, Valjean runs off with Myriel’s silverware. When the police capture Valjean, Myriel pretends that he has given the silverware to Valjean and presses him to take two silver candlesticks as well, as if he had forgotten to take them. The police accept his explanation and leave. Myriel tells Valjean that his life has been spared for God, and that he should use money from the silver candlesticks to make an honest man of himself.

Valjean broods over Myriel’s words. When opportunity presents itself, purely out of habit, he steals a 40-sous coin from 12-year-old Petit Gervais and chases the boy away. He quickly repents and searches the city in panic for Gervais. At the same time, his theft is reported to the authorities. Valjean hides as they search for him, because if apprehended he will be returned to the galleys for life as a repeat offender.

Six years pass and Valjean, using the alias Monsieur Madeleine, has become a wealthy factory owner and is appointed mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer. Walking down the street, he sees a man named Fauchelevent pinned under the wheels of a cart. When no one volunteers to lift the cart, even for pay, he decides to rescue Fauchelevent himself. He crawls underneath the cart, manages to lift it, and frees him. The town’s police inspector, Inspector Javert, who was an adjutant guard at the Bagne of Toulon during Valjean’s incarceration, becomes suspicious of the mayor after witnessing this remarkable feat of strength. He has known only one other man, a convict named Jean Valjean, who could accomplish it.

Years earlier in Paris, a grisette named Fantine was very much in love with Félix Tholomyès. His friends, Listolier, Fameuil, and Blachevelle were also paired with Fantine’s friends Dahlia, Zéphine, and Favourite. The men abandon the women, treating their relationships as youthful amusements. Fantine must draw on her own resources to care for her and Tholomyès’ daughter, Cosette. When Fantine arrives at Montfermeil, she leaves Cosette in the care of the Thénardiers, a corrupt innkeeper and his selfish, cruel wife.

Fantine is unaware that they are abusing her daughter and using her as forced labor for their inn, and continues to try to meet their growing, extortionate and fictitious demands. She is later fired from her job at Jean Valjean’s factory, because of the discovery of her daughter, who was born out of wedlock. Meanwhile, the Thénardiers’ monetary demands continue to grow. In desperation, Fantine sells her hair and two front teeth, and she resorts to prostitution to pay the Thénardiers. Fantine is slowly dying from an unspecified disease.

A dandy named Bamatabois harasses Fantine in the street, and she reacts by striking him. Javert arrests Fantine. She begs to be released so that she can provide for her daughter, but Javert sentences her to six months in prison. Valjean (Mayor Madeleine) intervenes and orders Javert to release her. Javert resists but Valjean prevails. Valjean, feeling responsible because his factory turned her away, promises Fantine that he will bring Cosette to her. He takes her to a hospital.

Javert comes to see Valjean again. Javert admits that after being forced to free Fantine, he reported him as Valjean to the French authorities. He tells Valjean he realizes he was wrong, because the authorities have identified someone else as the real Jean Valjean, have him in custody, and plan to try him the next day. Valjean is torn, but decides to reveal himself to save the innocent man, whose real name is Champmathieu. He travels to attend the trial and there reveals his true identity. Valjean returns to Montreuil to see Fantine, followed by Javert, who confronts him in her hospital room.

After Javert grabs Valjean, Valjean asks for three days to bring Cosette to Fantine, but Javert refuses. Fantine discovers that Cosette is not at the hospital and fretfully asks where she is. Javert orders her to be quiet, and then reveals to her Valjean’s real identity. Weakened by the severity of her illness, she falls back in shock and dies. Valjean goes to Fantine, speaks to her in an inaudible whisper, kisses her hand, and then leaves with Javert. Later, Fantine’s body is unceremoniously thrown into a public grave.

Volume II: Cosette

Valjean escapes, is recaptured, and is sentenced to death. The king commutes his sentence to penal servitude for life. While imprisoned in the Bagne of Toulon, Valjean, at great personal risk, rescues a sailor caught in the ship’s rigging. Spectators call for his release. Valjean fakes his own death by allowing himself to fall into the ocean. Authorities report him dead and his body lost.

Valjean arrives at Montfermeil on Christmas Eve. He finds Cosette fetching water in the woods alone and walks with her to the inn. He orders a meal and observes how the Thénardiers abuse her, while pampering their own daughters Éponine and Azelma, who mistreat Cosette for playing with their doll. Valjean leaves and returns to make Cosette a present of an expensive new doll which, after some hesitation, she happily accepts. Éponine and Azelma are envious. Madame Thénardier is furious with Valjean, while her husband makes light of Valjean’s behaviour, caring only that he pay for his food and lodging.

The next morning, Valjean informs the Thénardiers that he wants to take Cosette with him. Madame Thénardier immediately accepts, while Thénardier pretends to love Cosette and be concerned for her welfare, reluctant to give her up. Valjean pays the Thénardiers 1,500 francs, and he and Cosette leave the inn. Thénardier, hoping to swindle more out of Valjean, runs after them, holding the 1,500 francs, and tells Valjean he wants Cosette back. He informs Valjean that he cannot release Cosette without a note from the child’s mother. Valjean hands Thénardier Fantine’s letter authorizing the bearer to take Cosette. Thénardier then demands that Valjean pay a thousand crowns, but Valjean and Cosette leave. Thénardier regrets that he did not bring his gun and turns back toward home.

Valjean and Cosette flee to Paris. Valjean rents new lodgings at Gorbeau House, where he and Cosette live happily. However, Javert discovers Valjean’s lodgings there a few months later. Valjean takes Cosette and they try to escape from Javert. They soon find shelter in the Petit-Picpus convent with the help of Fauchelevent, the man whom Valjean once rescued from being crushed under a cart and who has become the convent’s gardener. Valjean also becomes a gardener and Cosette becomes a student at the convent school.

Volume III: Marius

Eight years later, the Friends of the ABC, led by Enjolras, are preparing an act of anti-Orléanist civil unrest (i.e. the Paris uprising on 5–6 June 1832, following the death of General Lamarque, the only French leader who had sympathy towards the working class. Lamarque was a victim of a major cholera epidemic that had ravaged the city, particularly its poor neighborhoods, arousing suspicion that the government had been poisoning wells). The Friends of the ABC are joined by the poor of the Cour des miracles, including the Thénardiers’ eldest son Gavroche, who is a street urchin.

One of the students, Marius Pontmercy, has become alienated from his family (especially his royalist grandfather M. Gillenormand) because of his Bonapartism views. After the death of his father, Colonel Georges Pontmercy, Marius discovers a note from him instructing his son to provide help to a sergeant named Thénardier who saved his life at Waterloo—in reality Thénardier was looting corpses and only saved Pontmercy’s life by accident; he had called himself a sergeant under Napoleon to avoid exposing himself as a robber.

At the Luxembourg Garden, Marius falls in love with the now grown and beautiful Cosette. The Thénardiers have also moved to Paris and now live in poverty after losing their inn. They live under the surname “Jondrette” at Gorbeau House (coincidentally, the same building Valjean and Cosette briefly lived in after leaving the Thénardiers’ inn). Marius lives there as well, next door to the Thénardiers.

Éponine, now ragged and emaciated, visits Marius at his apartment to beg for money. To impress him, she tries to prove her literacy by reading aloud from a book and by writing “The Cops Are Here” on a sheet of paper. Marius pities her and gives her some money. After Éponine leaves, Marius observes the “Jondrettes” in their apartment through a crack in the wall. Éponine comes in and announces that a philanthropist and his daughter are arriving to visit them. In order to look poorer, Thénardier puts out the fire and breaks a chair. He also orders Azelma to punch out a window pane, which she does, resulting in cutting her hand (as Thénardier had hoped).

The philanthropist and his daughter enter—actually Valjean and Cosette. Marius immediately recognizes Cosette. After seeing them, Valjean promises them he will return with rent money for them. After he and Cosette leave, Marius asks Éponine to retrieve her address for him. Éponine, who is in love with Marius herself, reluctantly agrees to do so. The Thénardiers have also recognized Valjean and Cosette, and vow their revenge. Thénardier enlists the aid of the Patron-Minette, a well-known and feared gang of murderers and robbers.

Marius overhears Thénardier’s plan and goes to Javert to report the crime. Javert gives Marius two pistols and instructs him to fire one into the air if things get dangerous. Marius returns home and waits for Javert and the police to arrive. Thénardier sends Éponine and Azelma outside to look out for the police. When Valjean returns with rent money, Thénardier, with Patron-Minette, ambushes him and he reveals his real identity to Valjean. Marius recognizes Thénardier as the man who saved his father’s life at Waterloo and is caught in a dilemma.

He tries to find a way to save Valjean while not betraying Thénardier. Valjean denies knowing Thénardier and tells him that they have never met. Valjean tries to escape through a window but is subdued and tied up. Thénardier orders Valjean to pay him 200,000 francs. He also orders Valjean to write a letter to Cosette to return to the apartment, and they would keep her with them until he delivers the money. After Valjean writes the letter and informs Thénardier of his address, Thénardier sends out Mme. Thénardier to get Cosette. Mme. Thénardier comes back alone, and announces the address is a fake.

It is during this time that Valjean manages to free himself. Thénardier decides to kill Valjean. While he and Patron-Minette are about to do so, Marius remembers the scrap of paper that Éponine wrote on earlier. He throws it into the Thénardiers’ apartment through the wall crack. Thénardier reads it and thinks Éponine threw it inside. He, Mme. Thénardier and Patron-Minette try to escape, only to be stopped by Javert.

He arrests all the Thénardiers and Patron-Minette (except Claquesous, who escapes during his transportation to prison, and Montparnasse, who stops to run off with Éponine instead of joining in on the robbery). Valjean manages to escape the scene before Javert sees him.

Volume IV: The Idyll in the Rue Plumet and the Epic in the Rue St. Denis

After Éponine’s release from prison, she finds Marius at “The Field of the Lark” and sadly tells him that she found Cosette’s address. She leads him to Valjean’s and Cosette’s house on Rue Plumet, and Marius watches the house for a few days. He and Cosette then finally meet and declare their love for one another. Thénardier, Patron-Minette and Brujon manage to escape from prison with the aid of Gavroche (a rare case of Gavroche helping his family in their criminal activities). One night, during one of Marius’s visits with Cosette, the six men attempt to raid Valjean’s and Cosette’s house. However, Éponine, who has been sitting by the gates of the house, threatens to scream and awaken the whole neighbourhood if the thieves do not leave. Hearing this, they reluctantly retire. Meanwhile, Cosette informs Marius that she and Valjean will be leaving for England in a week’s time, which greatly troubles the pair.

The next day, Valjean is sitting in the Champ de Mars. He is feeling troubled about seeing Thénardier in the neighbourhood several times. Unexpectedly, a note lands in his lap, which says “Move Out.” He sees a figure running away in the dim light. He goes back to his house, tells Cosette they will be staying at their other house on Rue de l’Homme Arme, and reconfirms to her that they will be moving to England. Marius tries to get permission from M. Gillenormand to marry Cosette. His grandfather seems stern and angry, but has been longing for Marius’s return. When tempers flare, he refuses his a*sent to the marriage, telling Marius to make Cosette his mistress instead. Insulted, Marius leaves.

The following day, the students revolt and erect barricades in the narrow streets of Paris. Gavroche spots Javert and informs Enjolras that Javert is a spy. When Enjolras confronts him about this, he admits his identity and his orders to spy on the students. Enjolras and the other students tie him up to a pole in the Corinth restaurant. Later that evening, Marius goes back to Valjean’s and Cosette’s house on Rue Plumet, but finds the house no longer occupied. He then hears a voice telling him that his friends are waiting for him at the barricade. Distraught to find Cosette gone, he heeds the voice and goes.

When Marius arrives at the barricade, the revolution has already started. When he stoops down to pick up a powder keg, a soldier comes up to shoot Marius. However, a man covers the muzzle of the soldier’s gun with his hand. The soldier fires, fatally wounding the man, while missing Marius. Meanwhile, the soldiers are closing in. Marius climbs to the top of the barricade, holding a torch in one hand, a powder keg in the other, and threatens to the soldiers that he will blow up the barricade. After confirming this, the soldiers retreat from the barricade.

Marius decides to go to the smaller barricade, which he finds empty. As he turns back, the man who took the fatal shot for Marius earlier calls Marius by his name. Marius discovers this man is Éponine, dressed in men’s clothes. As she lies dying on his knees, she confesses that she was the one who told him to go to the barricade, hoping they would die together. She also confesses to saving his life because she wanted to die before he did.

The author also states to the reader that Éponine anonymously threw the note to Valjean. Éponine then tells Marius that she has a letter for him. She also confesses to have obtained the letter the day before, originally not planning to give it to him, but decides to do so in fear he would be angry at her about it in the afterlife. After Marius takes the letter, Éponine then asks him to kiss her on the forehead when she is dead, which he promises to do. With her last breath, she confesses that she was “a little bit in love” with him, and dies.

Marius fulfills her request and goes into a tavern to read the letter. It is written by Cosette. He learns Cosette’s whereabouts and he writes a farewell letter to her. He sends Gavroche to deliver it to her, but Gavroche leaves it with Valjean. Valjean, learning that Cosette’s lover is fighting, is at first relieved, but an hour later, he puts on a National Guard uniform, arms himself with a gun and ammunition, and leaves his home.

Volume V: Jean Valjean

Valjean arrives at the barricade and immediately saves a man’s life. He is still not certain if he wants to protect Marius or kill him. Marius recognizes Valjean at first sight. Enjolras announces that they are almost out of cartridges. When Gavroche goes outside the barricade to collect more ammunition from the dead National Guardsmen, he is shot dead.

Valjean volunteers to execute Javert himself, and Enjolras grants permission. Valjean takes Javert out of sight, and then shoots into the air while letting him go. Marius mistakenly believes that Valjean has killed Javert. As the barricade falls, Valjean carries off the injured and unconscious Marius. All the other students are killed. Valjean escapes through the sewers, carrying Marius’s body. He evades a police patrol, and reaches an exit gate but finds it locked. Thénardier emerges from the darkness. Valjean recognizes Thénardier, but Thénardier does not recognize Valjean. Thinking Valjean a murderer lugging his victim’s corpse, Thénardier offers to open the gate for money. As he searches Valjean and Marius’s pockets, he surreptitiously tears off a piece of Marius’s coat so he can later find out his identity. Thénardier takes the thirty francs he finds, opens the gate, and allows Valjean to leave, expecting Valjean’s emergence from the sewer will distract the police who have been pursuing him.

Upon exiting, Valjean encounters Javert and requests time to return Marius to his family before surrendering to him. Surprisingly Javert agrees, a*suming that Marius will be dead within minutes. After leaving Marius at his grandfather’s house, Valjean asks to be allowed a brief visit to his own home, and Javert agrees. There, Javert tells Valjean he will wait for him in the street, but when Valjean scans the street from the landing window he finds Javert has gone. Javert walks down the street, realizing that he is caught between his strict belief in the law and the mercy Valjean has shown him. He feels he can no longer give Valjean up to the authorities but also cannot ignore his duty to the law. Unable to cope with this dilemma, Javert commits suicide by throwing himself into the Seine.

Marius slowly recovers from his injuries. As he and Cosette make wedding preparations, Valjean endows them with a fortune of nearly 600,000 francs. As their wedding party winds through Paris during Mardi Gras festivities, Valjean is spotted by Thénardier, who then orders Azelma to follow him. After the wedding, Valjean confesses to Marius that he is an ex-convict. Marius is horrified, a*sumes the worst about Valjean’s moral character, and contrives to limit Valjean’s time with Cosette. Valjean accedes to Marius’ judgment and his separation from Cosette. Valjean loses the will to live and retires to his bed.

Thénardier approaches Marius in disguise, but Marius recognizes him. Thénardier attempts to blackmail Marius with what he knows of Valjean, but in doing so, he inadvertently corrects Marius’s misconceptions about Valjean and reveals all of the good he has done. He tries to convince Marius that Valjean is actually a murderer, and presents the piece of coat he tore off as evidence. Stunned, Marius recognizes the fabric as part of his own coat and realizes that it was Valjean who rescued him from the barricade. Marius pulls out a fistful of notes and flings it at Thénardier’s face. He then confronts Thénardier with his crimes and offers him an immense sum to depart and never return. Thénardier accepts the offer, and he and Azelma travel to America where he becomes a slave trader.

As they rush to Valjean’s house, Marius tells Cosette that Valjean saved his life at the barricade. They arrive to find Valjean near death and reconcile with him. Valjean tells Cosette her mother’s story and name. He dies content and is buried beneath a blank slab in Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Characters

Major

• Jean Valjean (also known as Monsieur Madeleine, Ultime Fauchelevent, Monsieur Leblanc, and Urbain Fabre) – The protagonist of the novel. Convicted for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s seven starving children and sent to prison for five years, he is paroled from prison nineteen years later (after four unsuccessful escape attempts added twelve years and fighting back during the second escape attempt added two extra years). Rejected by society for being a former convict, he encounters Bishop Myriel, who turns his life around by showing him mercy and encouraging him to become a new man. While sitting and pondering what Bishop Myriel had said, he puts his shoe on a forty-sou piece dropped by a young wanderer. Valjean threatens the boy with his stick when the boy attempts to rouse Valjean from his reverie and recover his money. He tells a passing priest his name, and the name of the boy, and this allows the police to charge him with armed robbery – a sentence that, if he were caught again, would return him to prison for life. He a*sumes a new identity (Monsieur Madeleine) in order to pursue an honest life. He introduces new manufacturing techniques and eventually builds two factories and becomes one of the richest men in the area. By popular acclaim, he is made mayor. He confronts Javert over Fantine’s punishment, turns himself in to the police to save another man from prison for life, and rescues Cosette from the Thénardiers. Discovered by Javert in Paris because of his generosity to the poor, he evades capture for the next several years in a convent. He saves Marius from imprisonment and probable death at the barricade, reveals his true identity to Marius and Cosette after their wedding, and is reunited with them just before his death, having kept his promise to the bishop and to Fantine, the image of whom is the last thing he sees before dying.
• Javert – A fanatic police inspector in pursuit to recapture Valjean. Born in the prisons to a convict father and a fortune teller mother, he renounces both of them and starts working as a guard in the prison, including one stint as the overseer for the chain gang of which Valjean is part (and here witnesses firsthand Valjean’s enormous strength and just what he looks like). Eventually he joins the police force in Montreuil-sur-Mer. He arrests Fantine and comes into conflict with Valjean/Madeleine, who orders him to release Fantine. Valjean dismisses Javert in front of his squad and Javert, seeking revenge, reports to the Police Inspector that he has discovered Jean Valjean. He is told that he must be incorrect, as a man mistakenly believed to be Jean Valjean was just arrested. He requests of M. Madeline that he be dismissed in disgrace, for he cannot be less harsh on himself than on others. When the real Jean Valjean turns himself in, Javert is promoted to the Paris police force where he arrests Valjean and sends him back to prison. After Valjean escapes again, Javert attempts one more arrest in vain. He then almost recaptures Valjean at Gorbeau house when he arrests the Thénardiers and Patron-Minette. Later, while working undercover behind the barricade, his identity is discovered. Valjean pretends to execute Javert, but releases him. When Javert next encounters Valjean emerging from the sewers, he allows him to make a brief visit home and then walks off instead of arresting him. Javert cannot reconcile his devotion to the law with his recognition that the lawful course is immoral. After composing a letter to the prefect of police outlining the squalid conditions that occur in prisons and the abuses that prisoners are subjected to, he takes his own life by jumping into the Seine.
• Fantine – A beautiful Parisian grisette abandoned with a small child by her lover Félix Tholomyès. Fantine leaves her daughter Cosette in the care of the Thénardiers, innkeepers in the village of Montfermeil. Mme. Thénardier spoils her own daughters and abuses Cosette. Fantine finds work at Monsieur Madeleine’s factory. Illiterate, she has others write letters to the Thénardiers on her behalf. A female supervisor discovers that she is an unwed mother and dismisses her. To meet the Thénardiers’ repeated demands for money, she sells her hair and two front teeth, and turns to prostitution. She becomes ill. Valjean learns of her plight when Javert arrests her for attacking a man who called her insulting names and threw snow down her back, and sends her to a hospital. As Javert confronts Valjean in her hospital room, because her illness has made her so weak, she dies of shock after Javert reveals that Valjean is a convict and hasn’t brought her daughter Cosette to her (after the doctor encouraged that incorrect belief that Jean Valjean’s recent absence was because he was bringing her daughter to her).
• Cosette (formally Euphrasie, also known as “the Lark”, Mademoiselle Lanoire, Ursula) – The illegitimate daughter of Fantine and Tholomyès. From approximately the age of three to the age of eight, she is beaten and forced to work as a drudge for the Thénardiers. After her mother Fantine dies, Valjean ransoms Cosette from the Thénardiers and cares for her as if she were his daughter. Nuns in a Paris convent educate her. She grows up to become very beautiful. She falls in love with Marius Pontmercy and marries him near the novel’s conclusion.
• Marius Pontmercy – A young law student loosely a*sociated with the Friends of the ABC. He shares the political principles of his father and has a tempestuous relationship with his royalist grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand. He falls in love with Cosette and fights on the barricades when he believes Valjean has taken her to London. After he and Cosette marry, he recognizes Thénardier as a swindler and pays him to leave France.
• Éponine (the Jondrette girl) – The Thénardiers’ elder daughter. As a child, she is pampered and spoiled by her parents, but ends up a street urchin when she reaches adolescence. She participates in her father’s crimes and begging schemes to obtain money. She is blindly in love with Marius. At Marius’ request, she finds Valjean and Cosette’s house for him and sadly leads him there. She also prevents her father, Patron-Minette, and Brujon from robbing the house during one of Marius’ visits there to see Cosette. After disguising herself as a boy, she manipulates Marius into going to the barricades, hoping that she and Marius will die there together. Wanting to die before Marius, she reaches out her hand to stop a soldier from shooting at him; she is mortally wounded as the bullet goes through her hand and her back. As she is dying, she confesses all this to Marius, and gives him a letter from Cosette. Her final request to Marius is that once she has passed, he will kiss her on the forehead. He fulfills her request not because of romantic feelings on his part, but out of pity for her hard life.
• Monsieur Thénardier and Madame Thénardier (also known as the Jondrettes, M. Fabantou, M. Thénard. Some translations identify her as the Thenardiess) – Husband and wife, parents of five children: two daughters, Éponine and Azelma, and three sons, Gavroche and two unnamed younger sons. As innkeepers, they abuse Cosette as a child and extort payment from Fantine for her support, until Valjean takes Cosette away. They become bankrupt and relocate under the name Jondrette to a house in Paris called the Gorbeau house, living in the room next to Marius. The husband a*sociates with a criminal group called “the Patron-Minette”, and conspires to rob Valjean until he is thwarted by Marius. Javert arrests the couple. The wife dies in prison. Her husband attempts to blackmail Marius with his knowledge of Valjean’s past, but Marius pays him to leave the country and he becomes a slave trader in the United States.
• Enjolras – The leader of Les Amis de l’ABC (Friends of the ABC) in the Paris uprising. He is passionately committed to republican principles and the idea of progress. He and Grantaire are executed by the National Guards after the barricade falls.
• Gavroche – The unloved middle child and eldest son of the Thénardiers. He lives on his own as a street urchin and sleeps inside an elephant statue outside the Bastille. He briefly takes care of his two younger brothers, unaware they are related to him. He takes part in the barricades and is killed while collecting bullets from dead National Guardsmen.
• Bishop Myriel – The Bishop of Digne (full name Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel, also called Monseigneur Bienvenu) – A kindly old priest promoted to bishop after a chance encounter with Napoleon. After Valjean steals some silver from him, he saves Valjean from being arrested and inspires Valjean to change his ways.
• Grantaire – Grantaire (Also known as “R”) was a student revolutionary with little interest in the cause. He reveres Enjolras, and his admiration is the main reason that Grantaire spends time with Les Amis de l’ABC (Friends of the ABC), despite Enjolras’s occasional scorn for him. Grantaire is often drunk and is unconscious for the majority of the June Rebellion. He and Enjolras are executed by the National Guards after the barricade falls.

Friends of the ABC

A revolutionary student club. In French, the letters “ABC” are pronounced identically to the French word abaissés, “the abased”.

• Bahorel – A dandy and an idler from a peasant background, who is known well around the student cafés of Paris.
• Combeferre – A medical student who is described as representing the philosophy of the revolution.
• Courfeyrac – A law student who is described as the centre of the group of Friends. He is honorable and warm and is Marius’ closest companion.
• Enjolras – The leader of the Friends. A resolute and charismatic youth, devoted to progress.
• Feuilly – An orphaned fan maker and passionate Polonophile who taught himself to read and write. He is the only member of the Friends who is not a student.
• Grantaire – A drunk with little interest in revolution. Despite his pessimism, he eventually declares himself a believer in the Republic, and dies alongside Enjolras.
• Jean Prouvaire (also Jehan) – A Romantic with knowledge of Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and an interest in the Middle Ages.
• Joly – A medical student who has unusual theories about health. He is a hypochondriac and is described as the happiest of the Friends.
• Lesgle (also Lègle, Laigle, L’Aigle [The Eagle] or Bossuet) – The oldest member of the group. Considered notoriously unlucky, Lesgle begins balding at the age of twenty-five. It is Lesgle who introduces Marius to the Friends.

Minor

• Azelma – The younger daughter of the Thénardiers. Like her sister Éponine, she is spoiled as a child, impoverished when older. She abets her father’s failed robbery of Valjean. On Marius and Cosette’s wedding day, she tails Valjean on her father’s orders. She travels to America with her father at the end of the novel.
• Bamatabois – An idler who harasses Fantine. Later a juror at Champmathieu’s trial.
• (Mlle) Baptistine Myriel – Bishop Myriel’s sister. She loves and venerates her brother.
• Blachevelle – A wealthy student in Paris originally from Montauban. He is a friend of Félix Tholomyès and becomes romantically involved with Fantine’s friend Favourite.
• Bougon, Madame (called Ma’am Burgon) – Housekeeper of Gorbeau House.
• Brevet – An ex-convict from Toulon who knew Valjean there; released one year after Valjean. In 1823, he is serving time in the prison in Arras for an unknown crime. He is the first to claim that Champmathieu is really Valjean. He used to wear knitted, checkered suspenders.
• Brujon – A robber and criminal. He participates in crimes with M. Thénardier and the Patron-Minette gang (such as the Gorbeau Robbery and the attempted robbery at the Rue Plumet). The author describes Brujon as being “a sprightly young fellow, very cunning and very adroit, with a flurried and plaintive appearance.”
• Champmathieu – A vagabond who is misidentified as Valjean after being caught stealing apples.
• Chenildieu – A lifer from Toulon. He and Valjean were chain mates for five years. He once tried to unsuccessfully remove his lifer’s brand TFP (“travaux forcés à perpetuité”, “forced labour for life”) by putting his shoulder on a chafing dish full of embers. He is described as a small, wiry but energetic man.
• Cochepaille – Another lifer from Toulon. He used to be a shepherd from the Pyrenees who became a smuggler. He is described as stupid and has a tattoo on his arm, 1 Mars 1815.
• Colonel Georges Pontmercy – Marius’s father and an officer in Napoleon’s army. Wounded at Waterloo, Pontmercy erroneously believes M. Thénardier saved his life. He tells Marius of this great debt. He loves Marius and although M. Gillenormand does not allow him to visit, he continually hid behind a pillar in the church on Sunday so that he could at least look at Marius from a distance. Napoleon made him a baron, but the next regime refused to recognize his barony or his status as a colonel, instead referring to him only as a commandant. The book usually calls him “The colonel”.
• Dahlia – A young grisette in Paris and member of Fantine’s group of seamstress friends along with Favourite and Zéphine. She becomes romantically involved with Félix Tholomyès’ friend Listolier.
• Fameuil – A wealthy student in Paris originally from Limoges. He is a friend of Félix Tholomyès and becomes romantically involved with Fantine’s friend Zéphine.
• Fauchelevent – A failed businessman whom Valjean (as M. Madeleine) saves from being crushed under a carriage. Valjean gets him a position as gardener at a Paris convent, where Fauchelevent later provides sanctuary for Valjean and Cosette and allows Valjean to pose as his brother.
• Favourite – A young grisette in Paris and leader of Fantine’s group of seamstress friends (including Zéphine and Dahlia). She is independent and well versed in the ways of the world and had previously been in England. Although she cannot stand Félix Tholomyès’ friend Blachevelle and is in love with someone else, she endures a relationship with him so she can enjoy the perks of courting a wealthy man.
• Listolier – A wealthy student in Paris originally from Cahors. He is a friend of Félix Tholomyès and becomes romantically involved with Fantine’s friend Dahlia.
• Mabeuf – An elderly churchwarden, friend of Colonel Pontmercy, who after the Colonel’s death befriends his son Marius and helps Marius realize his father loved him. Mabeuf loves plants and books, but sells his books and prints in order to pay for a friend’s medical care. When Mabeuf finds a purse in his yard, he takes it to the police. After selling his last book, he joins the students in the insurrection. He is shot dead raising the flag atop the barricade.
• Mademoiselle Gillenormand – Daughter of M. Gillenormand, with whom she lives. Her late half-sister (M. Gillenormand’s daughter from another marriage), was Marius’ mother.
• Madame Magloire – Domestic servant to Bishop Myriel and his sister.
• Magnon – Former servant of M. Gillenormand and friend of the Thénardiers. She had been receiving child support payments from M. Gillenormand for her two illegitimate sons, who she claimed were fathered by him. When her sons died in an epidemic, she had them replaced with the Thénardiers’ two youngest sons so that she could protect her income. The Thénardiers get a portion of the payments. She is incorrectly arrested for involvement in the Gorbeau robbery.
• Monsieur Gillenormand – Marius’ grandfather. A monarchist, he disagrees sharply with Marius on political issues, and they have several arguments. He attempts to keep Marius from being influenced by his father, Colonel Georges Pontmercy. While in perpetual conflict over ideas, he holds his grandson in affection.
• Mother Innocente (a.k.a. Marguerite de Blemeur) – The prioress of the Petit-Picpus convent.
• Patron-Minette – A quartet of bandits who a*sist in the Thénardiers’ ambush of Valjean at Gorbeau House and the attempted robbery at the Rue Plumet. The gang consists of Montparnasse, Claquesous, Babet, and Gueulemer. Claquesous, who escaped from the carriage transporting him to prison after the Gorbeau Robbery, joins the revolution under the guise of “Le Cabuc” and is executed by Enjolras for firing on civilians.
• Petit Gervais – A travelling Savoyard boy who drops a coin. Valjean, still a man of criminal mind, places his foot on the coin and refuses to return it.
• Sister Simplice – A famously truthful nun who cares for Fantine on her sickbed and lies to Javert to protect Valjean.
• Félix Tholomyès – Fantine’s lover and Cosette’s biological father. A wealthy, self-centered student in Paris originally from Toulouse, he eventually abandons Fantine when their daughter is two years old.
• Toussaint – Valjean and Cosette’s servant in Paris. She has a slight stutter.
• Two little boys – The two unnamed youngest sons of the Thénardiers, whom they send to Magnon to replace her two dead sons. Living on the streets, they encounter Gavroche, who is unaware they are his siblings but treats them like they are his brothers. After Gavroche’s death, they retrieve bread tossed by a bourgeois man to geese in a fountain at the Luxembourg Garden.
• Zéphine – A young grisette in Paris and member of Fantine’s group of seamstress friends along with Favourite and Dahlia. She becomes romantically involved with Félix Tholomyès’ friend Fameuil.

The narrator

Hugo does not give the narrator a name and allows the reader to identify the narrator with the novel’s author. The narrator occasionally injects himself into the narrative or reports facts outside the time of the narrative to emphasize that he is recounting historical events, not entirely fiction. He introduces his recounting of Waterloo with several paragraphs describing the narrator’s recent approach to the battlefield: “Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles …” The narrator describes how “[a]n observer, a dreamer, the author of this book” during the 1832 street fighting was caught in crossfire: “All that he had to protect him from the bullets was the swell of the two half columns which separate the shops; he remained in this delicate situation for nearly half an hour.” At one point he apologizes for intruding—”The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of mentioning himself”—to ask the reader’s understanding when he describes “the Paris of his youth … as though it still existed.” This introduces a meditation on memories of past places that his contemporary readers would recognize as a self-portrait written from exile: “you have left a part of your heart, of your blood, of your soul, in those pavements.” He describes another occasion when a bullet shot “pierced a brass shaving-dish suspended … over a hairdresser’s shop. This pierced shaving-dish was still to be seen in 1848, in the Rue du Contrat-Social, at the corner of the pillars of the market.” As evidence of police double agents at the barricades, he writes: “The author of this book had in his hands, in 1848, the special report on this subject made to the Prefect of Police in 1832.”

Contemporary reception

The appearance of the novel was a highly anticipated event as Victor Hugo was considered one of France’s foremost poets in the middle of the nineteenth century. The New York Times announced its forthcoming publication as early as April 1860. Hugo forbade his publishers from summarizing his story and refused to authorize the publication of excerpts in advance of publication. He instructed them to build on his earlier success and suggested this approach: “What Victor H. did for the Gothic world in Notre-Dame of Paris [The Hunchback of Notre Dame], he accomplishes for the modern world in Les Miserables”. A massive advertising campaign preceded the release of the first two volumes of Les Misérables in Brussels on 30 or 31 March and in Paris on 3 April 1862. The remaining volumes appeared on 15 May 1862.

Critical reactions were wide-ranging and often negative. Some critics found the subject matter immoral, others complained of its excessive sentimentality, and others were disquieted by its apparent sympathy with the revolutionaries. L. Gauthier wrote in Le Monde of 17 August 1862: “One cannot read without an unconquerable disgust all the details Monsieur Hugo gives regarding the successful planning of riots.” The Goncourt brothers judged the novel artificial and disappointing. Flaubert found “neither truth nor greatness” in it. He complained that the characters were crude stereotypes who all “speak very well – but all in the same way”. He deemed it an “infantile” effort and brought an end to Hugo’s career like “the fall of a god”. In a newspaper review, Charles Baudelaire praised Hugo’s success in focusing public attention on social problems, though he believed that such propaganda was the opposite of art. In private he castigated it as “repulsive and inept” (“immonde et inepte”). The Catholic Church placed it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

The work was a commercial success and has been a popular book ever since it was published. Translated the same year it appeared into several foreign languages, including Italian, Greek, and Portuguese, it proved popular not only in France, but across Europe and abroad.

English translations

• Charles E. Wilbour. New York: Carleton Publishing Company, June 1862. The first English translation. The first volume was available for purchase in New York beginning 7 June 1862.[39] Also New York and London: George Routledge and Sons, 1879.
• Lascelles Wraxall. London: Hurst and Blackett, October 1862. The first British translation.
• Translator identified as “A.F.” Richmond, Virginia, 1863. Published by West and Johnston publishers. The Editor’s Preface announces its intention of correcting errors in Wilbour’s translation. It said that some passages “exclusively intended for the French readers of the book” were being omitted, as well as “[a] few scattered sentences reflecting on slavery” because “the absence of a few antislavery paragraphs will hardly be complained of by Southern readers.” Because of paper shortages in wartime, the passages omitted became longer with each successive volume.
• Isabel Florence Hapgood. Published 1887, this translation is available at Project Gutenberg.
• Norman Denny. Folio Press, 1976. A modern British translation later re-published in paperback by Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-044430-0. The translator explains in an introduction that he has placed two of the novel’s longer digressive passages into appendices and made some minor abridgements in the text.
• Lee Fahnestock and Norman McAfee. Signet Classics. 3 March 1987. An unabridged edition based on the Wilbour translation with its language modernized. Paperback ISBN 0-451-52526-4
• Julie Rose. 2007. Vintage Classics, 3 July 2008. A new translation of the full work, with a detailed biographical sketch of Victor Hugo’s life, a chronology, and notes. ISBN 978-0-09-951113-7
• Christine Donougher. Penguin Classics, 7 November 2013. A new translation of the full work, with a detailed biographical sketch of Victor Hugo’s life, a chronology, and notes. ISBN 978-0141393599

Adaptations

Since its original publication, Les Misérables has been the subject of a large number of adaptations in numerous types of media, such as books, films, musicals, plays and games.

Notable examples of these adaptations include:

• The 1934 film, 4½-hour French version directed by Raymond Bernard and starring Harry Baur, Charles Vanel, Florelle, Josseline Gaël and Jean Servais.
• The 1935 film directed by Richard Boleslawski, starring Fredric March and Charles Laughton, nominated for Best Picture, Best Film Editing, Best Assistant Director at 8th Academy Awards.
• The 1937 radio adaptation by Orson Welles.
• The 1952 film adaptation directed by Lewis Milestone, starring Michael Rennie and Robert Newton.
• The 1958 film adaptation directed by Jean-Paul Le Chanois, with an international cast starring Jean Gabin, Bernard Blier, and Bourvil. Called “the most memorable film version”, it was filmed in East Germany and was overtly political.
• The 1978 television film adaptation, starring Richard Jordan and Anthony Perkins.
• The 1980 musical, by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg.
• The 1982 film adaptation, directed by Robert Hossein, starring Lino Ventura and Michel Bouquet.
• The 1995 film, by Claude Lelouch, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo
• The 1998 film, starring Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush.
• The 2000 TV miniseries, starring Gérard Depardieu and John Malkovich.
• The 2007 TV anime adaptation, by Studio Nippon Animation.
• The 2012 film of the musical, starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried.
• A 2018 TV miniseries by Andrew Davies, starring Dominic West, David Oyelowo and Lily Collins.

Sequels

• Laura Kalpakian’s Cosette: The Sequel to Les Misérables was published in 1995. It continues the story of Cosette and Marius, but is more a sequel to the musical than to the original novel.
• In 2001, two French novels by François Cérésa [fr] that continue Hugo’s story appeared: Cosette ou le temps des illusions and Marius ou le fugitif. The former has been published in an English translation. Javert appears as a hero who survived his suicide attempt and becomes religious; Thénardier returns from America; Marius is unjustly imprisoned. The works were the subject of an unsuccessful lawsuit, Société Plon et autres v. Pierre Hugo et autres brought by Hugo’s great-great-grandson.

Michael John Pratt (7 June 1931 – 10 July 1976) was an English actor, musician, songwriter and screenwriter, known for his work on British television in the 1960s and 1970s.

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Early life and musical career

Early in his career, Mike Pratt worked in advertising, while also taking some part-time acting roles. He left his office job in the mid-1950s. With three friends (including Lionel Bart), he then drove around Europe in an old-style London taxi.

Upon returning to England, he earned a living as a jazz and skiffle musician in London clubs. An accomplished guitarist and pianist, in the 1950s, he jammed with the Vipers Skiffle Group at the 2 I’s club in London with his friend Tommy Steele. Pratt can be seen jamming skiffle on a 1950s Pathé News clip with other musicians of the era including members of the Shadows. A successful songwriter, Mike collaborated with Bart and Steele on many of Steele’s early hits in the late 1950s and early ’60s. To enable Steele to start to film his life story, co-writers Steele, Bart and Pratt, wrote twelve songs in seven days. A Steele-Pratt collaboration, “A Handful of Songs”, originally a hit for Tommy Steele in 1957, became the theme tune to a long-running Granada Television children’s programme of the same name in the late 1970s.  They also contributed to the writing of the song “Rock with the Caveman”. Bart and Pratt received the 1957 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for “Little White Bull”. He won a further Ivor Novello award for “Handful of Songs”. In 1961, he wrote the music and lyrics for The Big Client, a play which was produced at the Bristol Old Vic from 28 November 1961.

Acting career

Pratt appeared in numerous plays between 1965 and 1967. From 25 May 1966, he appeared at the Aldwych Theatre in Tango, a play by Slawomir Mrozek, alongside Patience Collier, Peter Jeffrey, Ursula Mohan and Dudley Sutton, under director Trevor Nunn.

He is best known for his role as Jeff Randall in the late 1960s ITC detective series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) alongside Kenneth Cope and Annette Andre. Pratt also wrote episode two of the series, titled “A Disturbing Case”.

He also appeared in TV series such as No Hiding Place, The Saint, Gideon’s Way, Z-Cars, Danger Man, Out of the Unknown, Redcap, The Baron, Man in a Suitcase, The Champions, Callan, UFO (episode “The Psychobombs”), The Expert, Hadleigh, Jason King, Arthur of the Britons, Softly, Softly: Taskforce, Crown Court, Father Brown, Oil Strike North and The Adventures of Black Beauty, in which he had a semi-regular role. His last television role was in the BBC drama series The Brothers as airline pilot Don Stacy.

His film career included roles in This Is My Street (1964), The Party’s Over (1965), Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965), Robbery (1967), A Dandy in Aspic (1968), The Fixer (1968), Goodbye Gemini (1970), Sitting Target (1972), Assassin (1973), the horror anthology The Vault of Horror (1973), and Swallows and Amazons (1974).

He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, appearing on stage throughout the rest of the 1960s and the early 1970s.

Death

Mike Pratt died from lung cancer in July 1976. In August of that year, a show was staged at the Aldwych Theatre in London in his memory. The cast included Glenda Jackson, Kenneth Haigh and John Le Mesurier. Of his co-star in Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), Kenneth Cope said:

“Michael was a great loss, both to the industry and as a friend.”

His son is Guy Pratt, a session bass guitarist who also played with Pink Floyd in their later live performances and as part of David Gilmour’s live band since 2006.

George Gershwin (/ˈɡɜːrʃ.wɪn/; born Jacob Bruskin Gershowitz; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer, pianist and painter whose compositions spanned both popular and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928), the songs “Swanee” (1919) and “Fascinating Rhythm” (1924), the jazz standard “I Got Rhythm” (1930), and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935) which gave birth to the hit “Summertime”. 

Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Joseph Brody. He began his career as a song plugger but soon started composing Broadway theater works with his brother Ira Gershwin and with Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, but she refused him. He subsequently composed An American in Paris, returned to New York City and wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, it came to be considered one of the most important American operas of the twentieth century and an American cultural classic.

Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores. He died in 1937 of a malignant brain tumor.  His compositions have been adapted for use in film and television, with several becoming jazz standards recorded and covered in many variations.

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Biography

Ancestors

Gershwin was of Russian-Jewish ancestry. His grandfather, Jakov Gershowitz, was born in Odessa and had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of free travel and residence as a Jew; finally retiring near Saint Petersburg. His teenage son, Moishe Gershowitz, worked as a leather cutter for women’s shoes. Moishe Gershowitz met and fell in love with Roza Bruskina, the teenage daughter of a furrier in Vilnius. She and her family moved to New York because of increasing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, changing her first name to Rose. Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to. Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris. Gershowitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, working as a foreman in a women’s shoe factory. He married Rose on July 21, 1895, and Gershowitz soon Americanized his name to Gershwine. Their first child, Ira Gershwin, was born on December 6, 1896, after which the family moved into a second-floor apartment on Snediker Avenue in Brooklyn.

Early life

On September 26, 1898, George was born as second son to Morris and Rose Bruskin Gershwin in their second-floor apartment at 242 Snediker Avenue in Brooklyn. His birth certificate identifies him as Jacob Gershwin, with the surname pronounced ‘Gersh-vin’ in the Russian and Yiddish immigrant community. He had just one given name, contrary to the American practice of giving children both a first and a middle name. He was named after his grandfather, the army mechanic. He soon became known as George, and changed the spelling of his surname to ‘Gershwin’ around the time he became a professional musician; other family members followed suit.[8] After Ira and George, another boy, Arthur Gershwin (1900–1981), and a girl, Frances Gershwin (1906–1999), were born into the family.

The family lived in many different residences, as their father changed dwellings with each new enterprise in which he became involved. They grew up mostly in the Yiddish Theater District. George and Ira frequented the local Yiddish theaters, with George occasionally appearing onstage as an extra.

George lived a boyhood not unusual in New York tenements, which included running around with his friends, roller-skating and misbehaving in the streets. Until 1908, he cared nothing about music. Then as a ten-year-old, he was intrigued upon hearing his friend Maxie Rosenzweig’s violin recital. The sound, and the way his friend played, captivated him. At about the same time, George’s parents had bought a piano for his older brother Ira. To his parents’ surprise, though, and to Ira’s relief, it was George who spent more time playing it as he continued to enjoy it.

Although his younger sister Frances was the first in the family to make a living through her musical talents, she married young and devoted herself to being a mother and housewife, thus precluding spending any serious time on musical endeavors. Having given up her performing career, she settled upon painting as a creative outlet, which had also been a hobby George briefly pursued. Arthur Gershwin followed in the paths of George and Ira, also becoming a composer of songs, musicals, and short piano works.

With a degree of frustration, George tried various piano teachers for about two years (circa 1911) before finally being introduced to Charles Hambitzer by Jack Miller (circa 1913), the pianist in the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra. Until his death in 1918, Hambitzer remained Gershwin’s musical mentor, taught him conventional piano technique, introduced him to music of the European classical tradition, and encouraged him to attend orchestral concerts.

Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, 1913–1923

In 1913, Gershwin left school at the age of 15 and found his first job as a “song plugger”. His employer was Jerome H. Remick and Company, a Detroit-based publishing firm with a branch office on New York City’s Tin Pan Alley, and he earned $15 a week.

His first published song was “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em, When You’ve Got ‘Em, You Don’t Want ‘Em” in 1916 when Gershwin was only 17 years old. It earned him 50 cents.

In 1916, Gershwin started working for Aeolian Company and Standard Music Rolls in New York, recording and arranging. He produced dozens, if not hundreds, of rolls under his own and a*sumed names (pseudonyms attributed to Gershwin include Fred Murtha and Bert Wynn). He also recorded rolls of his own compositions for the Duo-Art and Welte-Mignon reproducing pianos. As well as recording piano rolls, Gershwin made a brief foray into vaudeville, accompanying both Nora Bayes and Louise Dresser on the piano. His 1917 novelty ragtime, “Rialto Ripples”, was a commercial success.

In 1919 he scored his first big national hit with his song “Swanee,” with words by Irving Caesar. Al Jolson, a famous Broadway singer of the day, heard Gershwin perform “Swanee” at a party and decided to sing it in one of his shows.

In the late 1910s, Gershwin met songwriter and music director William Daly. The two collaborated on the Broadway musicals Piccadilly to Broadway (1920) and For Goodness’ Sake (1922), and jointly composed the score for Our Nell (1923). This was the beginning of a long friendship. Daly was a frequent arranger, orchestrator and conductor of Gershwin’s music, and Gershwin periodically turned to him for musical advice.

Musical, Europe and classical music, 1924–1928

In 1924, Gershwin composed his first major classical work, Rhapsody in Blue, for orchestra and piano. It was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé and premiered by Paul Whiteman’s Concert Band, in New York. It subsequently went on to be his most popular work, and established Gershwin’s signature style and genius in blending vastly different musical styles in revolutionary ways.

Since the early 1920s Gershwin had frequently worked with the lyricist Buddy DeSylva. Together they created the experimental one-act jazz opera Blue Monday, set in Harlem. It is widely regarded as a forerunner to the groundbreaking Porgy and Bess. In 1924, George and Ira Gershwin collaborated on a stage musical comedy Lady Be Good, which included such future standards as “Fascinating Rhythm” and “Oh, Lady Be Good!”. They followed this with Oh, Kay! (1926),[19] Funny Face (1927) and Strike Up the Band (1927 and 1930). Gershwin allowed the song, with a modified title, to be used as a football fight song, “Strike Up The Band for UCLA”.

In the mid-1920s, Gershwin stayed in Paris for a short period of time, during which he applied to study composition with the noted Nadia Boulanger, who, along with several other prospective tutors such as Maurice Ravel, turned him down, afraid that rigorous classical study would ruin his jazz-influenced style. Maurice Ravel’s rejection letter to Gershwin told him, “Why become a second-rate Ravel when you’re already a first-rate Gershwin?” While there, Gershwin wrote An American in Paris. This work received mixed reviews upon its first performance at Carnegie Hall on December 13, 1928, but it quickly became part of the standard repertoire in Europe and the United States.

New York, 1929–1935

In 1929, the Gershwin brothers created Show Girl; The following year brought Girl Crazy, which introduced the standards “Embraceable You”, debuted by Ginger Rogers, and “I Got Rhythm”. 1931’s Of Thee I Sing became the first musical comedy to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; the winners were George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, and Ira Gershwin.

Gershwin spent the summer of 1934 on Folly Island in South Carolina after he was invited to visit by the author of the novel Porgy, DuBose Heyward. He was inspired to write the music to his opera Porgy and Bess while on this working vacation. Porgy and Bess was considered another American classic by the composer of Rhapsody in Blue — even if critics could not quite figure out how to evaluate it, or decide whether it was opera or simply an ambitious Broadway musical. “It crossed the barriers,” per theater historian Robert Kimball. “It wasn’t a musical work per se, and it wasn’t a drama per se – it elicited response from both music and drama critics. But the work has sort of always been outside category.”

Last years, 1936–37

After the commercial failure of Porgy and Bess, Gershwin moved to Hollywood, California. In 1936, he was commissioned by RKO Pictures to write the music for the film Shall We Dance, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Gershwin’s extended score, which would marry ballet with jazz in a new way, runs over an hour in length. It took Gershwin several months to compose and orchestrate.

Gershwin had a ten-year affair with composer Kay Swift, whom he frequently consulted about his music. The two never married, although she eventually divorced her husband James Warburg in order to commit to the relationship. Swift’s granddaughter, Katharine Weber, has suggested that the pair were not married because George’s mother Rose was “unhappy that Kay Swift wasn’t Jewish”. The Gershwins’ 1926 musical Oh, Kay was named for her. After Gershwin’s death, Swift arranged some of his music, transcribed several of his recordings, and collaborated with his brother Ira on several projects.

Illness and death

Early in 1937, Gershwin began to complain of blinding headaches and a recurring impression that he smelled burning rubber. On February 11, 1937, he performed his Piano Concerto in F in a special concert of his music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of French maestro Pierre Monteux.[31] Gershwin, normally a superb pianist in his own compositions, suffered coordination problems and blackouts during the performance. He was at the time working on other Hollywood film projects while living with Ira and his wife Leonore in their rented house in Beverly Hills. Leonore Gershwin began to be disturbed by George’s mood swings and his seeming inability to eat without spilling food at the dinner table. She suspected mental illness and insisted he be moved out of their house to lyricist Yip Harburg’s empty quarters nearby, where he was placed in the care of his valet, Paul Mueller. The headaches and olfactory hallucinations continued.

On the night of July 9, 1937 Gershwin collapsed in Harburg’s house, where he had been working on the score of The Goldwyn Follies. He was rushed back to Cedars of Lebanon,  and fell into a coma. Only then did his doctors come to believe that he was suffering from a brain tumor. Leonore called George’s close friend Emil Mosbacher and explained the dire need to find a neurosurgeon. Mosbacher immediately called pioneering neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing in Boston, who, retired for several years by then, recommended Dr. Walter Dandy, who was on a boat fishing in Chesapeake Bay with the governor of Maryland. Mosbacher called the White House and had a Coast Guard cutter sent to find the governor’s yacht and bring Dandy quickly to shore. Mosbacher then chartered a plane and flew Dandy to Newark Airport, where he was to catch a plane to Los Angeles; however, by that time, Gershwin’s condition was critical and the need for surgery was immediate. In the early hours of July 11, doctors at Cedars removed a large brain tumor, believed to have been a glioblastoma, but Gershwin died on the morning of Sunday, July 11, 1937, at the age of 38.  The fact that he had suddenly collapsed and become comatose after he stood up on July 9, has been interpreted as brain herniation with Duret haemorrhages.

Gershwin’s friends and fans were shocked and devastated. John O’Hara remarked: “George Gershwin died on July 11, 1937, but I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.” He was interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. A memorial concert was held at the Hollywood Bowl on September 8, 1937, at which Otto Klemperer conducted his own orchestration of the second of Gershwin’s Three Preludes.

Musical style and influence

Gershwin was influenced by French composers of the early twentieth century. In turn Maurice Ravel was impressed with Gershwin’s abilities, commenting, “Personally I find jazz most interesting: the rhythms, the way the melodies are handled, the melodies themselves. I have heard of George Gershwin’s works and I find them intriguing.” The orchestrations in Gershwin’s symphonic works often seem similar to those of Ravel; likewise, Ravel’s two piano concertos evince an influence of Gershwin.

George Gershwin asked to study with Ravel. When Ravel heard how much Gershwin earned, Ravel replied with words to the effect of, “You should give me lessons.” (Some versions of this story feature Igor Stravinsky rather than Ravel as the composer; however Stravinsky confirmed that he originally heard the story from Ravel.)

Gershwin’s own Concerto in F was criticized for being related to the work of Claude Debussy, more so than to the expected jazz style. The comparison did not deter him from continuing to explore French styles. The title of An American in Paris reflects the very journey that he had consciously taken as a composer: “The opening part will be developed in typical French style, in the manner of Debussy and Les Six, though the tunes are original.”

Gershwin was intrigued by the works of Alban Berg, Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, and Arnold Schoenberg. He also asked Schoenberg for composition lessons. Schoenberg refused, saying “I would only make you a bad Schoenberg, and you’re such a good Gershwin already.” (This quote is similar to one credited to Maurice Ravel during Gershwin’s 1928 visit to France – “Why be a second-rate Ravel, when you are a first-rate Gershwin?”) Gershwin was particularly impressed by the music of Berg, who gave him a score of the Lyric Suite. He attended the American premiere of Wozzeck, conducted by Leopold Stokowski in 1931, and was “thrilled and deeply impressed”.

Russian Joseph Schillinger’s influence as Gershwin’s teacher of composition (1932–1936) was substantial in providing him with a method of composition. There has been some disagreement about the nature of Schillinger’s influence on Gershwin. After the posthumous success of Porgy and Bess, Schillinger claimed he had a large and direct influence in overseeing the creation of the opera; Ira completely denied that his brother had any such a*sistance for this work. A third account of Gershwin’s musical relationship with his teacher was written by Gershwin’s close friend Vernon Duke, also a Schillinger student, in an article for the Musical Quarterly in 1947.

What set Gershwin apart was his ability to manipulate forms of music into his own unique voice. He took the jazz he discovered on Tin Pan Alley into the mainstream by splicing its rhythms and tonality with that of the popular songs of his era. Although George Gershwin would seldom make grand statements about his music, he believed that “true music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. My people are Americans. My time is today.”

In 2007, the Library of Congress named its Prize for Popular Song after George and Ira Gershwin. Recognizing the profound and positive effect of popular music on culture, the prize is given annually to a composer or performer whose lifetime contributions exemplify the standard of excellence a*sociated with the Gershwins. On March 1, 2007, the first Gershwin Prize was awarded to Paul Simon.

Recordings and film

Early in his career, under both his own name and pseudonyms, Gershwin recorded more than one hundred and forty player piano rolls which were a main source of his income. The majority were popular music of the period and a smaller proportion were of his own works. Once his musical theatre-writing income became substantial, his regular roll-recording career became superfluous. He did record additional rolls throughout the 1920s of his main hits for the Aeolian Company’s reproducing piano, including a complete version of his Rhapsody in Blue.

Compared to the piano rolls, there are few accessible audio recordings of Gershwin’s playing. His first recording was his own “Swanee” with the Fred Van Eps Trio in 1919. The recorded balance highlights the banjo playing of Van Eps, and the piano is overshadowed. The recording took place before “Swanee” became famous as an Al Jolson specialty in early 1920.

Gershwin recorded an abridged version of Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and his orchestra for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1924, soon after the world premiere. Gershwin and the same orchestra made an electrical recording of the abridged version for Victor in 1927. However, a dispute in the studio over interpretation angered Whiteman and he left. The conductor’s baton was taken over by Victor’s staff conductor Nathaniel Shilkret.

Gershwin made a number of solo piano recordings of tunes from his musicals, some including the vocals of Fred and Adele Astaire, as well as his Three Preludes for piano. In 1929, Gershwin “supervised” the world premiere recording of An American in Paris with Nathaniel Shilkret and the Victor Symphony Orchestra. Gershwin’s role in the recording was rather limited, particularly because Shilkret was conducting and had his own ideas about the music. When it was realized that no one had been hired to play the brief celeste solo, Gershwin was asked if he could and would play the instrument, and he agreed. Gershwin can be heard, rather briefly, on the recording during the slow section.

Gershwin appeared on several radio programs, including Rudy Vallee’s, and played some of his compositions. This included the third movement of the Concerto in F with Vallee conducting the studio orchestra. Some of these performances were preserved on transcription discs and have been released on LP and CD.

In 1934, in an effort to earn money to finance his planned folk opera, Gershwin hosted his own radio program titled Music by Gershwin. The show was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network from February to May and again in September through the final show on December 23, 1934. He presented his own work as well as the work of other composers. Recordings from this and other radio broadcasts include his Variations on I Got Rhythm, portions of the Concerto in F, and numerous songs from his musical comedies. He also recorded a run-through of his Second Rhapsody, conducting the orchestra and playing the piano solos. Gershwin recorded excerpts from Porgy and Bess with members of the original cast, conducting the orchestra from the keyboard; he even announced the selections and the names of the performers. In 1935 RCA Victor asked him to supervise recordings of highlights from Porgy and Bess; these were his last recordings.

A 74-second newsreel film clip of Gershwin playing I Got Rhythm has survived, filmed at the opening of the Manhattan Theater (now The Ed Sullivan Theater) in August 1931.[  There are also silent home movies of Gershwin, some of them shot on Kodachrome color film stock, which have been featured in tributes to the composer. In addition, there is newsreel footage of Gershwin playing “Mademoiselle from New Rochelle” and “Strike Up the Band” on the piano during a Broadway rehearsal of the 1930 production of Strike Up the Band. In the mid-30s, “Strike Up The Band” was given to UCLA to be used as a football fight song, “Strike Up The Band for UCLA”. The comedy team of Clark and McCullough are seen conversing with Gershwin, then singing as he plays.

In 1945, the film biography Rhapsody in Blue was made, starring Robert Alda as George Gershwin. The film contains many factual errors about Gershwin’s life, but also features many examples of his music, including an almost complete performance of Rhapsody in Blue.

In 1965, Movietone Records released an album MTM 1009 featuring Gershwin’s piano rolls of the titled George Gershwin plays RHAPSODY IN BLUE and his other favorite compositions. The B-side of the LP featured nine other recordings.

In 1975, Columbia Records released an album featuring Gershwin’s piano rolls of Rhapsody In Blue, accompanied by the Columbia Jazz Band playing the original jazz band accompaniment, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The B-side of the Columbia Masterworks release features Tilson Thomas leading the New York Philharmonic in An American In Paris.

In 1976, RCA Records, as part of its “Victrola Americana” line, released a collection of Gershwin recordings taken from 78s recorded in the 1920s and called the LP “Gershwin plays Gershwin, Historic First Recordings” (RCA Victrola AVM1-1740). Included were recordings of “Rhapsody in Blue” with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and Gershwin on piano; “An American in Paris”, from 1927 with Gershwin on celesta; and “Three Preludes”, “Clap Yo’ Hands” and Someone to Watch Over Me”, among others. There are a total of ten recordings on the album. At the opening ceremony of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, “Rhapsody in Blue” was performed in spectacular fashion by many pianists.

The soundtrack to Woody Allen’s 1979 film Manhattan is composed entirely of Gershwin’s compositions, including Rhapsody in Blue, “Love is Sweeping the Country”, and “But Not for Me”, performed by both the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and the Buffalo Philharmonic under Michael Tilson Thomas. The film begins with a monologue by Allen: “He adored New York City … To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.”

In 1993, two audio CDs featuring piano rolls recorded by Gershwin were issued by Nonesuch Records through the efforts of Artis Wodehouse, and entitled Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls.

In October 2009, it was reported by Rolling Stone that Brian Wilson was completing two unfinished compositions by George Gershwin,[51] released as Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin on August 17, 2010, consisting of ten George and Ira Gershwin songs, bookended by passages from “Rhapsody in Blue”, with two new songs completed from unfinished Gershwin fragments by Wilson and band member Scott Bennett.

Compositions

Orchestral

• Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra (1924)
• Concerto in F for piano and orchestra (1925)
• An American in Paris for orchestra (1928)
• Dream Sequence/The Melting Pot for chorus and orchestra (1931)
• Second Rhapsody for piano and orchestra (1931), originally titled Rhapsody in Rivets
• Cuban Overture for orchestra (1932), originally entitled Rumba
• March from “Strike Up the Band” for orchestra (1934)
• Variations on “I Got Rhythm” for piano and orchestra (1934)
• Catfish Row for orchestra (1936), a suite based on music from Porgy and Bess
• Shall We Dance (1937), a movie score feature-length ballet

Solo piano

• Three Preludes (1926)
• George Gershwin’s Song-book (1932), solo piano arrangements of 18 songs

Operas

• Blue Monday (1922), one-act opera
• Porgy and Bess (1935) at the Colonial Theatre in Boston

London musicals

• Primrose (1924)

Broadway musicals

• George White’s Scandals (1920–1924), featuring, at one point, the 1922 one-act opera Blue Monday)
• Lady, Be Good (1924)
• Tip-Toes (1925)
• Tell Me More! (1925)
• Oh, Kay! (1926)
• Strike Up the Band (1927)
• Funny Face (1927)
• Rosalie (1928)
• Treasure Girl (1928)
• Show Girl (1929)
• Girl Crazy (1930)
• Of Thee I Sing (1931)
• Pardon My English (1933)
• Let ‘Em Eat Cake (1933)
• My One and Only (1983), an original 1983 musical using previously written Gershwin songs
• Crazy for You (1992), a revised version of Girl Crazy
• Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012), a musical with a score by George and Ira Gershwin
• An American in Paris, a musical that ran on Broadway from April 2015 to October 2016

Films for which Gershwin wrote original scores

• Delicious (1931), an early version of the Second Rhapsody and one other musical sequence was used in this film, the rest were rejected by the studio
• Shall We Dance (1937), original orchestral score by Gershwin, no recordings available in modern stereo, some sections have never been recorded (Nominated- Academy Award for Best Original Song: They Can’t Take That Away from Me)
• A Damsel in Distress (1937)
• The Goldwyn Follies (1938), posthumously released
• The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947), uses previously unpublished songs

Legacy

Estate

Gershwin died intestate, and his estate passed to his mother. The estate continues to collect significant royalties from licensing the copyrights on his work. The estate supported the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act because its 1923 cutoff date was shortly before Gershwin had begun to create his most popular works. The copyrights on all Gershwin’s solo works expired at the end of 2007 in the European Union, based on its life-plus-70-years rule.

In 2005, The Guardian determined using “estimates of earnings accrued in a composer’s lifetime” that George Gershwin was the wealthiest composer of all time.

The George and Ira Gershwin Collection, much of which was donated by Ira and the Gershwin family estates, resides at the Library of Congress.

In September 2013, a partnership between the estates of Ira and George Gershwin and the University of Michigan was created and will provide the university’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance access to Gershwin’s entire body of work, which includes all of Gershwin’s papers, compositional drafts, and scores.[ This direct access to all of his works will provide opportunities to musicians, composers, and scholars to analyze and reinterpret his work with the goal of accurately reflecting the composers’ vision in order to preserve his legacy. The first fascicles of The Gershwin Critical Edition, edited by Mark Clague, are expected in 2017; they will cover the 1924 jazz band version of Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and Porgy and Bess.

Awards and honors

• In 1937, Gershwin received his sole Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 1937 Oscars for “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”, written with his brother Ira for the 1937 film Shall We Dance. The nomination was posthumous; Gershwin died two months after the film’s release.
• In 1985, the Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to George and Ira Gershwin. Only three other songwriters, George M. Cohan, Harry Chapin and Irving Berlin, have had the honor of receiving this award.
• In 1998 a special Pulitzer Prize was posthumously awarded to Gershwin “commemorating the centennial year of his birth, for his distinguished and enduring contributions to American music.”
• The George and Ira Gershwin Lifetime Musical Achievement Award was established by UCLA to honor the brothers for their contribution to music and for their gift to UCLA of the fight song “Strike Up the Band for UCLA”.
• In 2006, Gershwin was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.

Namesakes

• The Gershwin Theatre on Broadway is named after George and Ira.
• The Gershwin Hotel in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City was named after George and Ira.
• In Brooklyn, George Gershwin Junior High School 166 is named after him.
• One of Holland America Line’s ships, MS Koningsdam has a Gershwin Deck (Deck 5)
• The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song

Biopics

• The 1945 biographical film Rhapsody in Blue starred Robert Alda as George Gershwin.
• Director Steven Spielberg planned a Biopic film in 2010 based of the life of Gershwin, casting Zachary Quinto as Gershwin.

Portrayals in other media

• Since 1999, Hershey Felder has produced a one-man show with him portraying George Gershwin Alone, which has played over 3,000 performances and was winner of two 2007 Ovation Awards. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Felder launched a global live-streaming Hershey Felder Presents: Live from Florence featuring a performance of “Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone” in September 2020.
• Paul Rudd portrays an imaginary friend based on George Gershwin, said to be his creator’s favorite composer, in the 2015 series finale of the Irish sitcom Moone Boy, “Gershwin’s Bucket List”.

6 6 6 6 6 6 -4 5 -5 -5 -5 6 -5 5 -4 5
The festival was over, the boys were all plannin’ for a fall,
5 6 6 6 6 6 4 -5 -5 -5 -5 6 -5 5 -4 5
The cabaret was quiet except for the drillin’ in the wall.
7 7 7 7 -6 6 5 5 -4 -4 -4 5 -4 4 4
The curfew had been lifted and the gamblin’ wheel shut down,
7 7 7 -6 6 6 -6 5 -4 -4 -4 4 5
Anyone with any sense had already left town.
5 5 5 4 5 -5 6 4 -5 -5 -5 5 6 5 4
He was standin’ in the doorway lookin’ like the Jack of Hearts.

He moved across the mirrored room, “Set it up for everyone,” he said,
Then everyone commenced to do what they were doin’ before he turned
their heads.
Then he walked up to a stranger and he asked him with a grin,
“Could you kindly tell me, friend, what time the show begins?”
Then he moved into the corner, face down like the Jack of Hearts.

Backstage the girls were playin’ five-card stud by the stairs,
Lily had two queens, she was hopin’ for a third to match her pair.
Outside the streets were fillin’ up, the window was open wide,
A gentle breeze was blowin’, you could feel it from inside.
Lily called another bet and drew up the Jack of Hearts.

Big Jim was no one’s fool, he owned the town’s only diamond mine,
He made his usual entrance lookin’ so dandy and so fine.
With his bodyguards and silver cane and every hair in place,
He took whatever he wanted to and he laid it all to waste.
But his bodyguards and silver cane were no match for the Jack of
Hearts.

Rosemary combed her hair and took a carriage into town,
She slipped in through the side door lookin’ like a queen without a
crown.
She fluttered her false eyelashes and whispered in his ear,
“Sorry, darlin’, that I’m late,” but he didn’t seem to hear.
He was starin’ into space over at the Jack of Hearts.

“I know I’ve seen that face before,” Big Jim was thinkin’ to himself,
“Maybe down in Mexico or a picture up on somebody’s shelf.”
But then the crowd began to stamp their feet and the house lights did
dim
And in the darkness of the room there was only Jim and him,
Starin’ at the butterfly who just drew the Jack of Hearts.

Lily was a princess, she was fair-skinned and precious as a child,
She did whatever she had to do, she had that certain flash every time
she smiled.
She’d come away from a broken home, had lots of strange affairs
With men in every walk of life which took her everywhere.
But she’d never met anyone quite like the Jack of Hearts.

The hangin’ judge came in unnoticed and was being wined and dined,
The drillin’ in the wall kept up but no one seemed to pay it any
mind.
It was known all around that Lily had Jim’s ring
And nothing would ever come between Lily and the king.
No, nothin’ ever would except maybe the Jack of Hearts.

Rosemary started drinkin’ hard and seein’ her reflection in the
knife,
She was tired of the attention, tired of playin’ the role of Big Jim’s
wife.
She had done a lot of bad things, even once tried suicide,
Was lookin’ to do just one good deed before she died.
She was gazin’ to the future, riding on the Jack of Hearts.

Lily washed her face, took her dress off and buried it away.
“Has your luck run out?” she laughed at him, “Well, I guess you must
have known it would someday.
Be careful not to touch the wall, there’s a brand-new coat of paint,
I’m glad to see you’re still alive, you’re lookin’ like a saint.”
Down the hallway footsteps were comin’ for the Jack of Hearts.

The backstage manager was pacing all around by his chair.
“There’s something funny going on,” he said, “I can just feel it in
the air.”
He went to get the hangin’ judge, but the hangin’ judge was drunk,
As the leading actor hurried by in the costume of a monk.
There was no actor anywhere better than the Jack of Hearts.

Lily’s arms were locked around the man that she dearly loved to
touch,
She forgot all about the man she couldn’t stand who hounded her so
much.
“I’ve missed you so,” she said to him, and he felt she was sincere,
But just beyond the door he felt jealousy and fear.
Just another night in the life of the Jack of Hearts.

No one knew the circumstance but they say that it happened pretty
quick,
The door to the dressing room burst open and a cold revolver clicked.
And Big Jim was standin’ there, ya couldn’t say surprised,
Rosemary right beside him, steady in her eyes.
She was with Big Jim but she was leanin’ to the Jack of Hearts.

Two doors down the boys finally made it through the wall
And cleaned out the bank safe, it’s said that they got off with quite
a haul.
In the darkness by the riverbed they waited on the ground
For one more member who had business back in town.
But they couldn’t go no further without the Jack of Hearts.

The next day was hangin’ day, the sky was overcast and black,
Big Jim lay covered up, killed by a penknife in the back.
And Rosemary on the gallows, she didn’t even blink,
The hangin’ judge was sober, he hadn’t had a drink.
The only person on the scene missin’ was the Jack of Hearts.

The cabaret was empty now, a sign said, “Closed for repair,”
Lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair.
She was thinkin’ ’bout her father, who she very rarely saw,
Thinkin’ ’bout Rosemary and thinkin’ about the law.
But, most of all she was thinkin’ ’bout the Jack of Hearts.

VERSE 1

6 6 6 -5b -5b 5 5 5 -4 -4
Look at the dan–dy, see Mis–ter Ban–jo,

4 4 4 4 4 -4 4 4 4 4 4
Car–ry–ing a bam–boo cane, Mis–ter Ban–jo,

4 4 4 4 -4 4 4 4 4 4
Big cane that goes tap, tap, Mis–ter Ban–jo,

4 4 4 4 -4 -4
Big cane that goes tap, tap!

VERSE 2

Look at the dandy, see Mister Banjo
He’s wearing brand new boots, Mister Banjo,
New boots that go squeak, squeak, Mister Banjo,
New boots that go squeak, squeak!

VERSE 3

Look at the dandy, see Mister Banjo,
Looking at his fine gold watch, Mister Banjo,
Gold watch that goes tick, tick, Mister Banjo,
Gold watch that goes tick, tick!

5 5 4 4 5 5 5 6
Change your partners, skip to my loo.

-4 -4 -3 -3 -4 -4 -4 -5
Choose your partners, skip to my loo.

5 5 4 4 5 5 5 6
Change your partners, skip to my loo.

-4 5 -5 5 -4 4 4
Skip to my loo, my darling.

Other stanzas:

salute your partners
I’ve got a dandy
Now shake a light foot
Chicken in the bread pan
fly’s in the buttermilk

(Start After Guitar Intro)
5 -6 7 -7 -6 7 -7 -7* 7 -6 6
Today, while the blossom still clings to the vine
5 -6 7 -77 -6 7 -7 -7* 7 -6 6
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine
-3 5 5 5 -5* -5* -5* -5 -5 -5 5*
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
-7 -7* 9 -6 7 -7 7 -7 -7* 6 6 -6
‘Ere I forget all the joys that is mine today

9 -7 7 -6 7 -7 -7* 7 -6 6 5
I’ll be a dandy and I’ll be a rover
7 -7 7 -6 6 -6 7 -7 7 -6 6
You’ll know who I am by the songs that I sing
5 9 -7 7 -6 7 -7 -7* 7 -6 6 5
I’ll feast at your table, I’ll sleep in your clover
5 -5 -5 -5 6 -6 7 -6
Who cares what tomorrow shall bring

5 -6 7 -7 -6 7 -7 -7* 7 -6 6
Today while the blossom still clings to the vine
5 -6 7 -7 7 -6 7 -7 7 -7 -7* 9*
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine

5* 9* -7* 7* -6* 7* -7* -8 7* -6* -6 5*
I can’t be contented with yesterday’s glory
7* -7* 7* -6* -6 -6* 7* -7* 7* -6* -6
I can’t live on promises winter to spring
5* 9* -7*7* -6* 7* -7* -8 7* -6* -6 5*
Today is my moment and now is my story
5* -5* -5* -5* -6 -6* 7* -6*
I’ll laugh and I’ll cry and I’ll sleep

-5 7 -7 -8 7 -7 -8 9 -7 7 -6*
Today while the blossom still clings to the vine
-5 7 -7 -8-7 7 -7 -8 9 -7 7 -6*
I’ll taste your strawberries I’ll drink your sweet wine
-4 -5 -5 -5 -6 -6 -6 6 6 6 -5*
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
-8 9 -9 7 -7 -8 -7 -8 9 -6* -6* 7
‘Ere I forget all the joy that is mine today

This plays with karaoke music, same Artist, run time 2:42.

VERSE 1

-2 +4 -4 +5 +4 -4 +5 -5 -4 +4 -3
to-day while the blossoms still cling to the vine

-2 +4 -4 +5 +4 -4
i,ll tast your strawberries,

+5 -5 -4 +4 -3
i,ll drink your sweet wine,

+5 +6 +6 +6 +6 -7b -7 -7 -6 -6 -6 -6b
a million to-mor–rows shall all pass a-way

+5 -5 +6 +4 -4 +5 -4 +5 -5 -3 -3 +4
here i for-get all the joy that is mine, to day

VERSE 2
now i,ll be dandy, and i,ll be a rover.
you,ll know who i am by the song that i sing.
i,ll feast at your table,i,ll sleep at ur clover.
who cares what tomorow shall bring.

VERSE 3
i cant be contented with yesterday,s glory.
i cant live on promises, winter to spring.
today is my moment,and now this is my story.
i,ll laugh and i,ll cry and i,ll sing.

VERSE 4
today while the blossoms still cling to the vine.
i,ll taste your strawberries,drink your sweetwine
a million tomorrows shall all pass away
here i forget all the joy that is mine today.

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6
I’m the kid that’s all the candy.

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6
I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.

-6 -8 -6 -8 -7 9 -8 9
I’m glad I am–So’s Uncle Sam.

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6
I’m a real live Yankee Doodle–

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6
Made my name and fame and boodle.

7 7 -88 -9 8 -8 7 -7 -8 6 -8 7 7
Just like Mr. Doodle did by riding on a pony.

6 7 7 7 -8 8 -9 9 9 98
I love to listen to the Dixie strain;

-10 9 8 -9 8 -8 7 -8 7 -6 7
I long to see the girl I left behind me–

7 -7 9 -7 9 -9 -8 7 9 8 9
And that ain’t no josh, she’s a Yankee by gosh.

98 7 8 9 10
Oh, say can you see

-87 -7 9 -9 9 -10 9 -7 8 -8 7
Anything about a Yankee that is phony.

8 -8 -8 7 -7 7 -8 -6 -8 -8 8 -8-7 -6 6 7
I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, a Yankee Doodle do or die–

8 8 8 8 -9 9 9 -98 -8 8 -8 7 -6 -7 7-8
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the 4th of July.

8 8 -8 -8 7 -7 7 -8 -6
I’ve got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart

-8 8 -8 -7 -6 6 7
She’s my Yankee Doodle joy.

7 7 -8 8 7 8 -8 6 7 7 -8 8 7 6
Yankee Doodle came to London, just to ride the ponies.

-6-8 -6 -7 7 -8 8 7
I am that Yankee Doodle Boy.

CAN THIS BE LOVE
W: Paul James
M: Kay Swift
From: the Broadway play �Fine And Dandy�
Key: F

-7 7 -6 5 -5
Who knows why the sea
-6 7* 7 -6 5 -5
or why the sky is blue
5 -5 6 -6 7 5 -7 5 -7*
Why should you love me or I love you
-7 7 -6 5 -5
Who knows how love starts
-6 7* 7 -6 5 -5
Or where its course will run
5 -5 6 -6 7 -7 -6 -7 8
Who knows why two hearts will beat as one

Refrain
-4 5 -7 7 -6 6 -5 -6
I�m all at sea, can this be love
-4 5 8 -7* -7 7 -6* -7
This mys-ter-y, can this be love
-6 7 -7 -7 -6 7
I�m in a blue haze where
-7 -7* 8 -9 -7
noth-ing seems quite real
-6 7 -7 -7 8
I wan-der through days
-7* 7 -7* -7 -6 7
with this cra-zy feel-ing
-4 5 -7 7 -6 6 -5 -6
What can it be, can this be love
-4 5 8 -7* -7 7 -6* -7
This thing that I keep dream-ing of
-6 7 -7 -7 -6
All through the night till
7 -7 -7* 8 -9 10
I wake at ear-ly dawn
-10 10 -9 -6 7 -6
Tell me can this be love