num_pages: 370
description: Dickens took down from his shelves, Carlyle's French Revolution, digested it whole, then proceeded to write what G.K. Chesterton calls (and many will agree with him after reading this book) 'Dickens's French Revolution,' which is probably more like the real French Revolution than Carlyle's'.Few romances of those historic days can compete with the rich panorama of life presented here. 'For all it's blood and its black guillotines the French Revolution was full of mere high spirits.' Dickens gained his sense of period through his old trick discovering high spirits and he worte about it with gusto: yet A Tale of Two Cities&gt;/i&gt; is unlike any other book of Dickens's. There is London, ominously calm, sensing events across the water, the very breezes about her streets carrying with them an almost perceptible excitement of the mob singing and dancing the Carmagnole. There is a fevered Paris where the creek and groan of the tumbrils rise above the chatter of the women who knit at the foot of 'Madame Guillotine.' Above all looms the singular figure of Sydney Carton, silent, dominant, passively observant, who unites the story in both realms.--Jacket flap
language: English
title: A Tale of Two Cities
titlecomplete: A Tale of Two Cities
characters: Madame Therese Defarge, Dr. Alexandre Manette, Sydney Carton, Charles Darnay, Lucie Manette
genres: Historical, Literature, British Literature, Classics, School, Novels, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Classic Literature
ratings_count: 925158
places: London, England, France, England, Paris
publisher: Everyman's Library