A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel published in 1859 by English author Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
As Dickens's best-known work of historical fiction, A Tale of Two Cities is said to be one of the best-selling novels of all time. In 2003, the novel was ranked 63rd on the BBC's The Big Read poll. The novel has been adapted for film, television, radio, and the stage, and has continued to influence popular culture.
Dickens opens the novel with a sentence that has become famous:
In 1775, Jerry Cruncher flags down the nightly mail-coach en route from London to Dover. Cruncher is an employee of Tellson's Bank in London; he carries a message for Jarvis Lorry, one of the bank's managers. Lorry sends Jerry back with the cryptic response "Recalled to Life", referring to Alexandre Manette, a French physician who has been released from the Bastille after an 18-year imprisonment. On arrival in Dover, Lorry meets Dr. Manette's daughter Lucie and her governess, Miss Pross. Believing her father to be dead, Lucie faints at the news that he is alive. Lorry takes her to France for a reunion.
In the Paris neighbourhood of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Dr. Manette has been given lodgings by his former servant Ernest Defarge and his wife Therese, the owners of a wine shop. Lorry and Lucie find him in a small garret where he spends much of his time distractedly and obsessively making shoes – a skill he learned in prison. Lorry and Lucie take him back to England.
In 1780, French émigré Charles Darnay is on trial in London for treason against the British Crown. The key witnesses against him are two British spies, John Barsad and Roger Cly. Barsad claims that he would recognise Darnay anywhere, but Darnay's lawyer points out that his colleague in court, Sydney Carton, bears a strong resemblance to the prisoner. With Barsad's testimony thus undermined, Darnay is acquitted.
In Paris, the hated and abusive Marquis St. Evrémonde orders his carriage driven recklessly fast through the crowded streets, hitting and killing a child. The Marquis throws a coin to the child's father, Gaspard, to compensate him for his loss; as the Marquis drives on, the coin is flung back into the carriage.
Arriving at his country château, the Marquis meets Darnay, his nephew and heir. Out of disgust with his aristocratic family, the nephew has replaced his surname (St. Evrémonde) with Darnay, an anglicised version of mother's maiden name (D'Aulnais). He despises the Marquis' views that "Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery ... will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof [looking up to it] shuts out the sky." That night, Gaspard creeps into the château and stabs and kills the Marquis in his sleep. He avoids capture for nearly a year, but is eventually hanged in the nearby village.
In London, Carton confesses his love to Lucie, but quickly recognises that she does not love him. He nevertheless promises to "embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you". Darnay asks for Dr. Manette's permission to wed Lucie, and he agrees. On the morning of the marriage, Darnay reveals his real name and lineage to Dr. Manette, facts that Manette had asked him to withhold until that day. The unexpected revelation causes Dr. Manette to revert to his obsessive shoemaking. He returns to sanity before their return from honeymoon, and the whole incident is kept secret from Lucie.
As the years pass, Lucie and Charles raise a family in England: a son (who dies in childhood) and a daughter, little Lucie. Lorry finds a second home with them. Carton, though he seldom visits, is accepted as a close friend and becomes a special favourite of little Lucie.
In Paris in July 1789, the Defarges help to lead the storming of the Bastille, a symbol of royal tyranny. Defarge enters Dr. Manette's former cell and searches it thoroughly. Throughout the countryside, local officials and other representatives of the aristocracy are slaughtered, and the St. Evrémonde château is burned to the ground.
In 1792, Lorry travels to France to save important documents stored at Tellson's Paris branch from the chaos of the French Revolution. Darnay receives a letter from Gabelle, one of his uncle's former servants who has been imprisoned by the revolutionaries, pleading for Darnay (now the Marquis St. Evrémonde) to help secure his release. Without telling his family or revealing his position as the new marquis, Darnay also sets out for Paris.
On his way to Paris, Darnay is arrested as a returning emigrated aristocrat and jailed in La Force Prison. Hoping to be able to save him, Dr. Manette, Lucie and her daughter, Jerry, and Miss Pross all move to Paris and take up lodgings near those of Lorry.
Fifteen months later Darnay is finally tried, and Dr. Manette – viewed as a popular hero after his long imprisonment in the Bastille – testifies on his behalf. Darnay is acquitted and released, but is re-arrested later that day.
While running errands with Jerry, Miss Pross is amazed to run into her long-lost brother Solomon. Now posing as a Frenchman, he is an employee of the revolutionary authorities and one of Darnay's gaolers. Carton also recognises him – as Barsad, one of the spies who tried to frame Darnay at his trial in 1780. Solomon is desperate to keep his true identity hidden, and Carton blackmails him into helping with a play by threatening to denounce him as an English spy.
Darnay's retrial the following day is based on new denunciations by the Defarges and on a manuscript that Defarge had found in Dr. Manette's Bastille cell. Defarge reads the manuscript to the tribunal. In it, Dr. Manette had recorded that his imprisonment was at the hands of the Evrémonde brothers (Darnay's father and uncle) after he had tried to report their crimes. Darnay's uncle had kidnapped and raped a peasant girl. Her brother, first hiding his remaining younger sister, had gone to confront the uncle, who ran him through with his sword. In spite of the best efforts of Dr. Manette, both the elder sister and the brother died. Dr. Manette's manuscript concludes by denouncing the Evrémondes, "them and their descendants, to the last of their race." The jury takes that as irrefutable proof of Darnay's guilt, and he is condemned to die by the guillotine the next afternoon.
In the Defarges' wine shop, Carton discovers that Madame Defarge is the surviving sister of the peasant family, and he overhears her planning to denounce Lucie and her daughter. He visits Lorry and warns him that Lucie and her family must be ready to flee the next day. He extracts a promise that they will be waiting for him at 2 pm, ready to leave the instant he returns.
Shortly before the executions are due to begin, Carton puts his plan into effect. With Barsad's reluctant assistance, he gains access to Darnay's prison cell. Carton drugs his lookalike and trades places with him. Then he has Barsad carry Darnay out to the carriage, where Lorry and the family are awaiting Carton. They flee to England with Darnay.
Meanwhile, Madame Defarge goes to Lucie's lodgings, hoping to apprehend her and her daughter. There she finds Miss Pross, who is waiting for Jerry so they can follow the family out of Paris. The two women struggle and Madame Defarge's pistol discharges, killing her and permanently deafening Miss Pross.
As Carton waits to board the tumbril that will take him to his execution, he is approached by another prisoner, a seamstress. Carton comforts her, telling her that their ends will be quick and that the worries of their lives will not follow them into "the better land where ... [they] will be mercifully sheltered." A final prophetic thought runs through his mind in which he visualises a better future for the family and their descendants.
Dickens closes with Carton's final prophetic vision as he contemplates the guillotine:
In order of appearance:
Chapter 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 3
Chapter 13
While performing in The Frozen Deep, Dickens was given a play to read called The Dead Heart by Watts Phillips which had the historical setting, the basic storyline, and the climax that Dickens used in A Tale of Two Cities. The play was produced while A Tale of Two Cities was being serialised in All the Year Round and led to talk of plagiarism.
Other sources are The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle (especially important for the novel's rhetoric and symbolism); Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton; The Castle Spector by Matthew Lewis; Travels in France by Arthur Young; and Tableau de Paris by Louis-Sébastien Mercier. Dickens also used material from an account of imprisonment during the Terror by Beaumarchais, and records of the trial of a French spy published in The Annual Register.
Research published in The Dickensian in 1963 suggests that the house at 1 Greek Street, now The House of St Barnabas, forms the basis for Dr. Manette and Lucie's London house.
The "golden arm" (an arm-and-hammer symbol, an ancient sign of the gold-beater's craft) is now housed at the Charles Dickens Museum, but a modern replica could be seen sticking out of the wall near the Pillars of Hercules pub at the western end of Manette Street (formerly Rose Street), until this building was demolished in 2017.
The 45-chapter novel was published in 31 weekly instalments in Dickens's new literary periodical titled All the Year Round. From April to November 1859, Dickens also republished the chapters as eight monthly sections in green covers. All but three of Dickens's previous novels had appeared as monthly instalments prior to publication as books. The first weekly instalment of A Tale of Two Cities ran in the first issue of All the Year Round on 30 April 1859. The last ran 30 weeks later, on 26 November.
The Telegraph and The Guardian claim that it is one of the best-selling novels of all time. WorldCat listed 1,529 editions of the work, including 1,305 print editions.
A Tale of Two Cities is one of Dickens' two works of historical fiction (with Barnaby Rudge).
Dickens uses literal translations of French idioms for characters who cannot speak English, such as "What the devil do you do in that galley there?!!" and "Where is my wife? … Here you see me." The Penguin Classics edition of the novel notes that "Not all readers have regarded the experiment as a success."
J. L. Borges quipped: "Dickens lived in London. In his book A Tale of Two Cities, based on the French Revolution, we see that he really could not write a tale of two cities. He was a resident of just one city: London."
In the Introduction to the Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction, critic Don D'Ammassa argues that it is an adventure novel because the protagonists are in constant danger of imprisonment or death.
Pairs of contrasting words in the opening lines have been interpreted to illustrate the social disparities between the French bourgeoisie and aristocracy around the time of the French Revolution. They may also act as a precursor to the book's theme of doubles.
Lucie Manette may reflect Dickens's relationship with eighteen-year-old actress Ellen Ternan, concerning which little is known for certain. The character has been noted as resembling Ternan physically.
After starring in a play by Wilkie Collins titled The Frozen Deep, Dickens was inspired to write Two Cities. In the play, Dickens played the part of a man who sacrifices his own life so that his rival may have the woman they both love; that love triangle became the basis for the relationships among Charles Darnay, Lucie Manette, and Sydney Carton.
Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay may bear importantly on Dickens's personal life. The plot hinges on the near-perfect resemblance between Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay; the two look so alike that Carton twice saves Darnay through others' inability to tell them apart. Carton is Darnay made bad. Carton suggests as much:
Charles Darnay shared Dickens' initials, a frequent property of his characters. Darnay's ambiguous fate may have been a reflection of Dickens' own insecurities.
Dickens dedicated the book to Whig and Liberal prime minister Lord John Russell: "In remembrance of many public services and private kindnesses."
The reports published in the press were divergent. Thomas Carlyle was enthusiastic, which made the author "heartily delighted". On the other hand, Mrs. Oliphant found "little of Dickens" in the novel. The critic James Fitzjames Stephen called it a "dish of puppy pie and stewed cat which is not disguised by the cooking" and "a disjointed framework for the display of the tawdry wares, which are Mr Dickens's stock-in-trade".
Stage musical adaptations of the novel include:
A Tale of Two Cities served as an inspiration to the 2012 Batman film The Dark Knight Rises by Christopher Nolan. The character of Bane is in part inspired by Dickens's Madame Defarge: He organises kangaroo court trials against the ruling elite of the city of Gotham and is seen knitting in one of the trial scenes like Madame Defarge. One of Bane's associates later put on trial is also named Mr. Stryver. There are other hints to Dickens's novel, such as Talia al Ghul being obsessed with revenge and having a close relationship to the hero, and Bane's catchphrase "the fire rises" as an ode to one of the book's chapters. Bane's associate Barsard is named after a supporting character in the novel. In the film's final scene, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) reads aloud the closing lines of Sydney Carton’s inner monologue—"It's a far far better thing I do than I have ever done, it's a far far better rest I go to than I have ever known"—directly from the novel.