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A Tale of Two Cities
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A Tale of Two Cities Mass market paperbound - 1989

by Charles Dickens

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Dickens's classic tale of the French Revolution brings to life a time of terror and treason, and chronicles a starving people who rise in frenzy and hate to overthrow a corrupt and decadent regime. This 150th anniversary edition features a new Afterword. Revised reissue.

About this book

Written by Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel that follows Manette, a French doctor imprisoned for 18 long years in Paris’s Bastille. Following his release, he goes to live in London with his daughter Lucie, who had never met him and believed him to be dead. Set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution and Reign of Terror, A Tale of Two Cities is a fictitious story that falls both into the historical and adventure genres. The famous book is one of the bestselling novels of all time, both for the atmosphere that Dickens’ creates and the tension he weaves. Full of love and brutality, A Tale of Two Cities exposes the highs and lows of humanity. 

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From the publisher

Charles Dickens' masterpiece of historical fiction about injustice, sacrifice, and redemption, set against the French Revolution

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . . ."

So begins Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, a masterful pageant of idealism, love, and adventure during the French Revolution.

After nearly two decades, Lucie Manette's father is released from his unjust imprisonment in the Bastille. The two relocate to London and meet Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat, and Sidney Carton, an English lawyer. Both men are smitten with the gorgeous Lucie, and she eventually weds Charles. But once the French Revolution breaks out, Charles faces execution--and Sidney faces a life-changing decision.

With his sublime parting words, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done . . .," Sidney Carton joins that exalted group of Dickensian characters who have earned a permanent place in the popular literary imagination. His dramatic story, set against the fury of the French Revolution and pervaded by the ominous rumble of the death carts trundling toward the guillotine, is the heart-stirring tale of a heroic soul in an age gone mad.

From the jacket flap

With his sublime parting words, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done..." Sidney Carton joins that exhalted group of Dickensian characters who have earned a permanent place in the popular literary imagination. His dramatic story, set against the volcanic fury of the French Revolution and pervaded by the ominous rumble of the death carts trundling toward the guillotine, is the heart-stirring tale of a heroic soul in an age gone mad. A masterful pageant of idealism, love, and adventure -- in a Paris bursting with revolutionary frenzy, and a London alive with anxious anticipation -- "A Tale of Two Cities is one of Dickens's most energetic and exciting works.

First edition identification

A Tale of Two Cities was first published in 31 weekly installments in a journal called All the Year Round between April and November of 1859, and published in a book form in the same year. The publisher of the first book edition was Chapman and Hall, based in London. Original illustrations were done by H. K. Browne on 16 plates inserted into the book. The first edition is a hardcover, octavo book with maroon cloth covers. However, some first editions have had the binding refurbished. A key way to identify first editions of A Tale of Two Cities is that page 213 is misnumbered as “113.” Additionally, affectionately is misspelled as “affetcionately” on line 12, page 134. Finally, the signature “b” is present on the list of plate illustrations.

Details

  • Title A Tale of Two Cities
  • Author Charles Dickens
  • Binding Mass Market Paperbound
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Pages 416
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Bantam Classics, New York, New York, U.S.A.
  • Publication date 1989-05-01
  • Features Bibliography, Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9780553211764 / 0553211765
  • Weight 0.45 lbs (0.20 kg)
  • Dimensions 6.9 x 4.2 x 1 in (17.53 x 10.67 x 2.54 cm)
  • Reading level 1130
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 18th Century
    • Chronological Period: 1800-1850
    • Cultural Region: French
    • Topical: Home School
  • Category Literature - Classics / Criticism
  • Library of Congress subjects Historical fiction, War stories
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 00002549
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

“[A Tale of Two Cities] has the best of Dickens and the worst of Dickens: a dark, driven opening, and a celestial but melodramatic ending; a terrifyingly demonic villainess and (even by Dickens’ standards) an impossibly angelic heroine. Though its version of the French Revolution is brutally simplified, its engagement with the immense moral themes of rebirth and terror, justice, and sacrifice gets right to the heart of the matter . . . For every reader in the past hundred and forty years and for hundreds to come, it is an unforgettable ride.”–from the Introduction by Simon Schama

About the author

Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in London backing warehouse, where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week. His father John Dickens, was a warmhearted but improvident man. When he was condemned the Marshela Prison for unpaid debts, he unwisely agreed that Charles should stay in lodgings and continue working while the rest of the family joined him in jail. This three-month separation caused Charles much pain; his experiences as a child alone in a huge city-cold, isolated with barely enough to eat-haunted him for the rest of his life.

When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter and finally an author. With Pickwick Papers (1836-7) he achieved immediate fame; in a few years he was easily the post popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. Olive Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable, A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1855-7) reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British Society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) complete his major works.

Dickens's marriage to Catherine Hoggarth produced ten children but ended in separation in 1858. In that year he began a series of exhausting public readings; his health gradually declined. After putting in a full day's work at his home at Gads Hill, Kent on June 8, 1870, Dickens suffered a stroke, and he died the following day.

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A Tale of Two Cities (Bantam Classics)
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by Dickens, Charles

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