Edited by Andreas Fliedner with a foreword by Tobias O. Meissner. "The Comprachicos - infamous in the seventeenth century, forgotten in the eighteenth century. The Comprachicos - they bought and sold children. And what did they do with these children? They made monsters out of them. Why monsters? For amusement. The people want to laugh, the kings do too. The street corners need their Hanswurst, the royal castles their fool." L'homme qui rit, originally published in 1869, is here reissued in the first translation by Georg Büchmann, which was presented in the same year, in four beautifully designed volumes. This masterpiece of social-critical horror was the basis for the legendary film The Man Who Laughs (1928) starring Conrad Veidt. Hugo's character portrayal as well as his depiction of human suffering in society.