Человек, который смеётся

Novel by Victor Hugo

The Man Who Laughs (also published under the title By Order of the King from its subtitle in French) is a novel by Victor Hugo, originally published in April 1869 under the French title L'Homme qui rit. It takes place in England beginning in 1690 and extends into the early 18th century reign of Queen Anne. It depicts England's royalty and aristocracy of the time as cruel and power hungry. Hugo intended parallels with the France of Louis Philippe and the Régence. The novel concerns the life of a young nobleman, also known as Gwynplaine, disfigured as a child (on the orders of the king), who travels with his protector and companion, the vagabond philosopher Ursus, and Dea, the baby girl he rescues during a storm. The novel is famous for Gwynplaine's mutilated face, stuck in a permanent laugh. The book has inspired many artists, dramatists and film makers.

Hugo's romantic novel The Man Who Laughs places its narrative in 17th century England, where the relationships between the bourgeoisie and aristocracy are complicated by continual distancing from the lower class. According to Algernon Charles Swinburne, "it is a book to be rightly read, not by the lamplight of realism, but by the sunlight of his imagination reflected upon ours." Hugo's protagonist, Gwynplaine (a physically transgressive figure, something of a monster), transgresses these societal spheres by being reinstated from the lower class into the aristocracy—a movement which enabled Hugo to critique construction of social identity based upon class status. Stallybrass and White's "The Sewer, the Gaze and the Contaminating Touch" addresses several of the class theories regarding narrative figures transgressing class boundaries. Gwynplaine specifically can be seen to be the supreme embodiment of Stallybrass and White's "rat" analysis, meaning Hugo's protagonist is, in essence, a sliding signifier.

In 2023, Canadian composer Airat Ichmouratov, composed an opera Tha Man Who Laughs to a libretto in french by poet Bertrand Laverdure, adapted from an eponymous novel. Commissioned by Festival Classica, it was premiered on May 31, 2023, in Montreal, Canada

In May 1950, the Gilberton publishing company produced a comic book adaptation of The Man Who Laughs as part of their prestigious Classics Illustrated series. This adaptation featured artwork by Alex Blum, much of it closely resembling the 1928 film (including the anachronistic Ferris wheel). The character of Gwynplaine is drawn as a handsome young man, quite normal except for two prominent creases at the sides of his mouth. As this comic book was intended for juvenile readers, there may have been an intentional editorial decision to minimise the appearance of Gwynplaine's disfigurement. A revised Classics Illustrated edition, with a more faithful script by Alfred Sundel, and a painted cover and new interior art by Norman Nodel, was issued in the spring of 1962. Nodel's artwork showed a Gwynplaine far more disfigured than the character's appearance in either the 1928 film or the 1950 Classics Illustrated edition. Another 1950s version, by Claude Henri Juillard, was published in the Ce soir newspaper. A comic book version was produced by Spanish artist Fernando de Felipe in 1992, published by S. I. Artists and republished by Heavy Metal in 1994. This adaptation was intended for a mature audience and places more emphasis on the horrific elements of the story. De Felipe simplified and took some liberties with Hugo's storyline. His rendering emphasized the grotesque in Hugo and excluded the elements of the sublime that were equally important in the original. From 2003 to 2011 an adaptation created by Jean David Morvan (scenario) and Nicolas Delestret (drawings) was published in four volumes by Éditions Delcourt. A comic book version of the story was published by Self Made Hero in 2013, featuring writer David Hine and artist Mark Stafford.

Mark Twain wrote a parody of L'Homme qui Rit which attempted to offer parallels between Gwynplaine and Andrew Johnson.