A Tale of Two Cities

By: Charles Dickens
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  • Summary

  • A Tale of Two Cities, novel by Charles Dickens, published both serially and in book form in 1859. The story is set in the late 18th century against the background of the French Revolution. Although Dickens borrowed from Thomas Carlyle’s history, The French Revolution, for his sprawling tale of London and revolutionary Paris, the novel offers more drama than accuracy. The scenes of large-scale mob violence are especially vivid, if superficial in historical understanding.

    The complex plot involves Sydney Carton’s sacrifice of his own life on behalf of his friends Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette. While political events drive the story, Dickens takes a decidedly antipolitical tone, lambasting both aristocratic tyranny and revolutionary excess—the latter memorably caricatured in Madame Defarge, who knits beside the guillotine. The book is perhaps best known for its opening lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” and for Carton’s last speech, in which he says of his replacing Darnay in a prison cell, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”
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Episodes
  • A Tale of Two Cities : Book 3 - Chapter 15 - The Footsteps Die Out For Ever

    A Tale of Two Cities : Book 3 - Chapter 15 - The Footsteps Die Out For Ever
    Jul 4 2023
    16 mins
  • A Tale of Two Cities : Book 3 - Chapter 14 - The Knitting Done

    A Tale of Two Cities : Book 3 - Chapter 14 - The Knitting Done
    Jul 4 2023
    31 mins
  • A Tale of Two Cities : Book 3 - Chapter 13 - Fifty-two

    A Tale of Two Cities : Book 3 - Chapter 13 - Fifty-two
    Jul 4 2023
    31 mins

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