A Tale of Two Cities
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.”
A Tale of Two Cities, published in 1859, is a historical drama written by Charles Dickens. The backdrop of the novel takes place in London and Paris prior to the French Revolution. The novel, told in three parts, has been adapted into numerous productions for film, theater, radio, and television.
In 1775, a banker named Jarvis Lorry travels to Dover, where he meets a young, half-French woman named Lucie Manette. Together, the pair travel to Paris to recover her father, Alexandre Manette. Once a successful doctor, Manette was, for unknown reasons, imprisoned 18 years ago in the infamous Bastille prison. He has now been released and is in the care of a former servant named Ernest Defarge, who now runs a wine-shop in the impoverished Saint Antoine district of Paris. Doctor Manette’s long imprisonment has left him in a bad psychological state; he is largely unaware of his surroundings and constantly busies himself making shoes. His daughter’s arrival seems to spark some signs of recognition in him, however, and the group departs for England.
Five years later, Lucie and Manette (now largely recovered) are witnesses in a treason case in London. The defendant is a young Frenchman named Charles Darnay, whom they initially met on the crossing from Calais. It initially seems likely that Darnay will be convicted of being a French spy, but at the last moment Darnay’s legal team asks whether Darnay might have been misidentified by a witness. To prove the plausibility of this, one of the lawyers—a man named Sydney Carton—stands up, revealing himself to look very much like Darnay.
Over the next several months, Darnay and Carton pay several visits to the Manettes at their London home; both men fall in love with Lucie, but where Darnay is hardworking, courteous, and noble, Carton is a cynical and depressed alcoholic. Darnay and Lucie eventually become engaged, while Carton, in confessing his love for Lucie, swears that he would give his life to keep her and those she loves safe.
Meanwhile, change is underway in France. Shortly after his trial, Darnay had visited his uncle, who is revealed to be a corrupt and cruel nobleman On the night of Darnay’s visit, however, the Marquis was killed by the father of a peasant boy he had run over with his carriage earlier that day. The man—Gaspard—is arrested and executed, but the events surrounding the murder generate further interest in a revolutionary society headed by Defarge and his wife Thérèse.
Darnay and Lucie marry, with Doctor Manette’s permission, although Manette suffers a brief relapse after learning Darnay’s true name. Several years pass in domestic bliss, and Darnay and Lucie have a daughter (also named Lucie). By the time the child is 6 events have come to a head in France; led by the Defarges, the French peasantry storm the Bastille and execute its guards. More violence quickly follows, with the killing of a government official and the arson of the Marquis’s former mansion.
Three years after the French Revolution begins, Darnay receives a letter from a man named gabelle, whom he had entrusted with the disposal of the Evrémonde property after Darnay himself renounced it. Gabelle is now accused of aiding an “emigrant”—an aristocrat who has fled France—and asks Darnay to come to Paris and speak for him. Darnay, trusting in his record of sympathy with the French peasantry, agrees. When he arrives in Paris, however, he is arrested and placed in La Force prison.
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