SparkNotes: A Tale of Two Cities: Plot Overview A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens Context Character List The year is 1775, and social ills plague both France and England. Jerry Cruncher, an odd-job man who works for Tellson’s Bank, stops the Dover mail-coach with an urgent message for Jarvis Lorry. The message instructs Lorry to wait at Dover for a young woman, and Lorry responds with the cryptic words, “Recalled to Life.” At Dover, Lorry is met by Lucie Manette, a young orphan whose father, a once-eminent doctor whom she supposed dead, has been discovered in France. Lorry escorts Lucie to Paris, where they meet Defarge, a former servant of Doctor Manette, who has kept Manette safe in a garret. Driven mad by eighteen years in the Bastille, Manette spends all of his time making shoes, a hobby he learned while in prison. Lorry assures Lucie that her love and devotion can recall her father to life, and indeed they do. The year is now 1780. Charles Darnay stands accused of treason against the English crown.

A bombastic lawyer named Stryver pleads Darnay’s case, but it is not until his drunk, good-for-nothing colleague, Sydney Carton, assists him that the court acquits Darnay. Carton clinches his argument by pointing out that he himself bears an uncanny resemblance to the defendant, which undermines the prosecution’s case for unmistakably identifying Darnay as the spy the authorities spotted. Lucie and Doctor Manette watched the court proceedings, and that night, Carton escorts Darnay to a tavern and asks how it feels to receive the sympathy of a woman like Lucie. Carton despises and resents Darnay because he reminds him of all that he himself has given up and might have been. In France, the cruel Marquis Evrémonde runs down a plebian child with his carriage. Manifesting an attitude typical of the aristocracy in regard to the poor at that time, the Marquis shows no regret, but instead curses the peasantry and hurries home to his chateau, where he awaits the arrival of his nephew, Darnay, from England.

Arriving later that night, Darnay curses his uncle and the French aristocracy for its abominable treatment of the people. He renounces his identity as an Evrémonde and announces his intention to return to England. That night, the Marquis is murdered; the murderer has left a note signed with the nickname adopted by French revolutionaries: “Jacques.” A year passes, and Darnay asks Manette for permission to marry Lucie. He says that, if Lucie accepts, he will reveal his true identity to Manette. Carton, meanwhile, also pledges his love to Lucie, admitting that, though his life is worthless, she has helped him dream of a better, more valuable existence. On the streets of London, Jerry Cruncher gets swept up in the funeral procession for a spy named Roger Cly. Later that night, he demonstrates his talents as a “Resurrection-Man,” sneaking into the cemetery to steal and sell Cly’s body. In Paris, meanwhile, another English spy known as John Barsad drops into Defarge’s wine shop. Barsad hopes to turn up evidence concerning the mounting revolution, which is still in its covert stages.

Madame Defarge sits in the shop knitting a secret registry of those whom the revolution seeks to execute. Back in London, Darnay, on the morning of his wedding, keeps his promise to Manette; he reveals his true identity and, that night, Manette relapses into his old prison habit of making shoes. After nine days, Manette regains his presence of mind, and soon joins the newlyweds on their honeymoon. Upon Darnay’s return, Carton pays him a visit and asks for his friendship. Darnay assures Carton that he is always welcome in their home. The year is now 1789. The peasants in Paris storm the Bastille and the French Revolution begins. The revolutionaries murder aristocrats in the streets, and Gabelle, a man charged with the maintenance of the Evrémonde estate, is imprisoned. Three years later, he writes to Darnay, asking to be rescued. Despite the threat of great danger to his person, Darnay departs immediately for France. As soon as Darnay arrives in Paris, the French revolutionaries arrest him as an emigrant. Lucie and Manette make their way to Paris in hopes of saving him.

Darnay remains in prison for a year and three months before receiving a trial. In order to help free him, Manette uses his considerable influence with the revolutionaries, who sympathize with him for having served time in the Bastille. Darnay receives an acquittal, but that same night he is arrested again. The charges, this time, come from Defarge and his vengeful wife. Carton arrives in Paris with a plan to rescue Darnay and obtains the help of John Barsad, who turns out to be Solomon Pross, the long-lost brother of Miss Pross, Lucie’s loyal servant. At Darnay’s trial, Defarge produces a letter that he discovered in Manette’s old jail cell in the Bastille. The letter explains the cause of Manette’s imprisonment. Years ago, the brothers Evrémonde (Darnay’s father and uncle) enlisted Manette’s medical assistance. They asked him to tend to a woman, whom one of the brothers had raped, and her brother, whom the same brother had stabbed fatally. Fearing that Manette might report their misdeeds, the Evrémondes had him arrested.

Upon hearing this story, the jury condemns Darnay for the crimes of his ancestors and sentences him to die within twenty-four hours. That night, at the Defarge’s wine shop, Carton overhears Madame Defarge plotting to have Lucie and her daughter (also Darnay’s daughter) executed as well; Madame Defarge, it turns out, is the surviving sibling of the man and woman killed by the Evrémondes. Carton arranges for the Manettes’ immediate departure from France. He then visits Darnay in prison, tricks him into changing clothes with him, and, after dictating a letter of explanation, drugs his friend unconscious. Barsad carries Darnay, now disguised as Carton, to an awaiting coach, while Carton, disguised as Darnay, awaits execution. As Darnay, Lucie, their child, and Dr. Manette speed away from Paris, Madame Defarge arrives at Lucie’s apartment, hoping to arrest her. There she finds the supremely protective Miss Pross. A scuffle ensues, and Madame Defarge dies by the bullet of her own gun.

Sydney Carton meets his death at the guillotine, and the narrator confidently asserts that Carton dies with the knowledge that he has finally imbued his life with meaning. More Help Why did Charles Dickens write A Tale of Two Cities? Why did Charles Dickens Write “A Tale of Two Cities”? “A Tale of Two Cities”: Summary, Synopsis & Symbolism The French Revolution changed the political landscape of the state’s aristocracy as the monarchy of France collapsed and led to the eventual execution of King Louis XVI. Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ was set in the time preceding the French Revolution and the time during the movement itself. The story was based in two major European hubs of the time which still attract significant attention today; London and Paris. The tale revolved around a supplanted French aristocrat and a dissolved British barrister. A Brief Insight into the Life of Charles Dickens Dickens, who was the most renowned English novelist of the Victorian Era, was born on the 7th of February, 1812 in Kent, England. He tended to write about social reform and its inevitable impact on the individuals affected by the waves of change which was a natural reaction to the maltreatment he faced as a child while working in different factories.

Unlike other novelists, Dickens used to publish his work in chapter installments rather than publishing finished works to begin with. His work mustered awe-inspiring acclaim and his novels remain popular over a century later. He died in the year 1870, at the age of fifty eight. Publication The book was published in the year 1839 from the months April through November. It was completed in thirty one weekly installments which were eventually compiled into a single copy which is now known as A Tale of Two Cities. The book is still split into three major sections which divide the story according to the timeframe, characters and relational intricacies. A Brief Summary of A Tale of Two Cities The story revolves mostly around Charles Darnay, a French ex-aristocrat and Sydney Carton, a British barrister. Darnay is victimized as he falls directly into the path of the Revolution’s movement and hides under pseudonyms instead of his actual name and title. He goes on trial for treason a few years later after British spies falsely accuse him of providing the French with information regarding British military troops in North America.

Sydney Carton, the barrister, fancies Darnay’s wife Lucie Manette but she does not reciprocate his feelings. Carton possesses a tarnished image and a damaged reputation. Some critics argue that Darnay and Carton were doppelgangers of each other’s personalities. The three main characters are trapped in a love-triangle with complicated relationships and convoluted intricacies. The relational complexities coupled with socio-political plot twists make for an epic tale of love, struggle, tragedy and hardship. Relation to Dickens’ personal life Several people were of the opinion that Carton and Darnay possessed traits that Charles Dickens himself had in his personality. The two characters are shown to be psychologically and genetically similar. It has also been argued that Charles Dickens’ affair with Ellen Ternan was reflected in the role of Lucie Manette. The likeness of the two men across either ends of the English Channel was illustrated by a specific collection of phrases in the book. It reads: ‘Do you particularly like the man [Darnay]?’ he muttered, at his own image [which he is regarding in a mirror]; ‘why should you particularly like a man who resembles you?

There is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have made in yourself! A good reason for talking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes [belonging to Lucie Manette] as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow. The characters that breathed life into A Tale of Two Cities The main characters were the two men entangled in their personal struggles and a common love interest, namely: Charles Darnay: The French ex-aristocrat. Sydney Carton: The disreputable British barrister. Lucie Manette: Charles Darnay’s wife and Sydney Carton’s love interest. There were several other characters that helped breathe life into the story which included: Dr. Alexandre Manette: Lucie’s father. Monsieur Ernest Defarge: Dr. Manette’s ex-servant who owns a wine shop. Madame Therese Defarge: A female revolutionary who is married to Ernest Defarge.

Jacques I, II, and III: Ernest Defarge’s revolutionary comrades. The Vengeance: Madam Defarge’s shadow lieutenant. There are several other characters which supported the story’s base but were not of equal importance when compared to the main lineup. Modern Adaptations The story was also adapted into several films across the Western world. Some of the notable film productions which featured Dickens’ infamous tale were: Three silent films titled A Tale of Two Cities (1911, 1917 and 1922) The Only Way (1927) A British production A Tale of Two Cities (1935) A silver screen MGM production featuring Ronald Colman which was nominated for an Academy Award. A Tale of Two Cities (1958) It was also adapted into radio shows in 1938, 1945, 1950 and 1989 which included broadcasts by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The BBC also produced a miniseries in 1957 which was based on the three main characters.

The tale was also re-embodied in four stage musicals and one opera in 1968, 1984 and in the 2000s. Susanne Alleyn, an American author, wrote the novel A Far Better Rest; which was based on A Tale of Two Cities from Sydney Carton’s perspective and was published in 2000. Other famous works by Charles Dickens Dickens was well known not only for A Tale of Two Cities but he also authored: The Adventures of Oliver Twist A Christmas Carol Great Expectations The Chimes He was well known for his distinct style which featured tinges of sarcasm and humor amid the formal tone of old. His works are preserved and recreated in the modern world. Famous quotations from A Tale of Two Cities "Eighteen years! Gracious Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!" – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Book 1, Chapter 3. "I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by and by into our lives." – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities , Book 2, Chapter 6.

"Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof shuts out the sky,’" Book 2, Chapter 9. "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." Book 3, Chapter 9. "Then tell the Wind and Fire where to stop, but don’t tell me." Book 3, Chapter 12. A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens Info A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities was the twelfth novel of Charles Dickens. The first chapters of the book appeared in print in April of 1859. The last chapter was printed in November of that same year. A Tale of Two Cities – Dickens’s Life At The Time In January of 1857 the first performances of The Frozen Deep are given. Dickens plays the role of Richard Wardour. This play gives Dickens the idea for A Tale of Two Cities.

In August of 1857 Dickens meets Ellen Ternan, an actress hired to act in benefit performances of The Frozen Deep. Ellen later becomes his mistress. Dickens separates from his wife Catherine in 1858. In March of 1859 Dickens begins writing A Tale of Two Cities. “Let them eat cake.” The novel takes place during the French Revolution. The revolution began in 1789. The French people were tired of the social and economic inequalities enforced by the ruling monarchy. The aristocracy and clergy lived a life of luxury while people in the Third Estate (peasants, artisans, merchants and professional men) paid most of the taxes and didn’t have as many rights. Legend has it that when the queen of France, Marie Antoinette, was told that the poor people didn’t have any bread to eat she responded, “Let them eat cake.” On September 22, 1792 France was declared a republic. In an effort to preserve the newly-founded republic many people were put on trial for crimes against the state. Thousands of people were sentenced to death in unfair trials and many more people were imprisoned.

The time from September 1793 to July 1794 is known as The Reign of Terror. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so. far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. – A Tale of Two Cities The Frozen Deep The Frozen Deep was the inspiration for A Tale of Two Cities. In 1857 Dickens acted in the play and portrayed the character of Richard Wardour. In the play Wardour decides that he’s going to kill Frank Aldersley because Frank stole his true love, Clara Burnham.

Instead Wardour ends up saving Aldersley’s life at the cost of his own. Wardour dies in Clara’s arms and earns her eternal gratitude for saving the life of the man that she loves. In addition to giving him the idea for A Tale of Two Cites, the play brought about lasting changes to Dickens’s life. In 1857 Dickens was not happy in his marriage. The once-happy couple had grown apart. Professional actresses were hired to act in a benefit production of The Frozen Deep. One of them was Ellen Ternan. She became Dickens’s mistress. Their affair lasted until Dickens’s death in 1870. Themes of A Tale of Two Cities In the story Doctor Manette is imprisoned for many years. He is kept in solitary confinement for years. His only activity is making shoes and when asked his name he answers, “One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” So harsh are his circumstances that it as if he were buried alive. Sydney Carton is another character who is “buried alive” only in this case the burial is of his own choosing.

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning him-self to let it eat him away. Carton is skilled at his profession, but he dislikes himself and sees nothing of value in life. However when Carton meets Lucie Manette that changes. ” . . . I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight.

A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.” A Tale of Two Cities Information A Tale of Two Cities Book 3, Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis from LitCharts | The creators of SparkNotes Summary Analysis Defarge explains that Dr. Manette wrote the letter while in the Bastille to explain how he ended up in prison. He then reads the letter. Walking home one night in 1757, Dr. Manette was taken into a carriage by two men, identical twins. From their coat of arms, he learned that they were Evrémondes: Charles's father (who was then the Marquis) and his uncle (who became the Marquis after Charles's father died, and was murdered in Book 2, Chapter 9). The letter tells the story of Manette's imprisonment. The twin Evrémonde brothers epitomize the selfishness and cruelty of aristocratic power. They take what they want, when they want, by whatever means necessary.

Active Themes The men took the doctor to see two patients: one, a beautiful young woman deliriously calling out for her family, and the other, a peasant boy with a stab wound in his chest. As Manette treated the boy, the boy told him that the young woman was his sister. After she married, the two aristocrats decided they wanted her for themselves. So they forced her husband to endure impossibly hard work until he died. Then they took her away and raped her. The Evrémondes don't recognize the individual rights of peasants, the sovereignty of marriage, or the sacredness of female sexuality, which was a huge deal in Dickens's time. They are the worst example of aristocratic tyranny, and, as such, they embody many of the reasons the commoners revolted. Active Themes The peasant boy and young woman's father died upon hearing the news. The boy then sent his younger sister to a distant, secret place, and, seeking revenge, snuck into the Evrémondes' castle. He confronted one of the Evrémondes, who stabbed him. The boy soon died, but before he did he cursed the Evrémondes by marking the air with a cross of his own blood.

The young woman died within a week. The nobles then offered Dr. Manette some gold in return for his silence, but he declined and returned home, disgusted with all he had seen. The curse seals the fate of the Evrémonde brothers. While Charles did not know this story, he sensed his family's dark past when he renounced it in Book 2, Chapter 9. Dr. Manette refused to be bought off by the Evrémondes, despite the danger of such an action. He sacrificed his freedom to preserve his integrity. Active Themes The next day, the wife of the Marquis (and Charles's mother) visited Dr. Manette. Hearing what had happened, she hoped to find and help the surviving sister of the abused peasant family. She told her little boy Charles that he must someday repay this injured girl. Unfortunately, Manette didn't know where the girl was. That surviving sister, as future events in the novel will show, is Madame Defarge. Ironically, Charles has pledged himself to help this girl, while she blindly seeks revenge and does everything in her power to kill him. Active Themes Get the entire A Tale of Two Cities LitChart as a printable PDF.

"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S. SparkNotes: A Tale of Two Cities: Book the First: Recalled to Life Chapters 1–4 Book the First: Recalled to Life Chapters 1–4 → Book the First: Recalled to Life Chapters 1–4, page 2 page 1 of 2 Summary: Chapter 1: The Period It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. . . . (See Important Quotations Explained ) As its title promises, this brief chapter establishes the era in which the novel takes place: England and France in 1775. The age is marked by competing and contradictory attitudes—“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”—but resembles the “present period” in which Dickens writes. In England, the public worries over religious prophecies, popular paranormal phenomena in the form of “the Cock-lane ghost,” and the messages that a colony of British subjects in America has sent to King George III.

France, on the other hand, witnesses excessive spending and extreme violence, a trend that anticipates the erection of the guillotine. Yet in terms of peace and order, English society cannot “justify much national boasting” either—crime and capital punishment abound. Summary: Chapter 2: The Mail On a Friday night in late November of 1775, a mail coach wends its way from London to Dover. The journey proves so treacherous that the three passengers must dismount from the carriage and hike alongside it as it climbs a steep hill. From out of the great mists, a messenger on horseback appears and asks to speak to Jarvis Lorry of Tellson’s Bank. The travelers react warily, fearing that they have come upon a highwayman or robber. Mr. Lorry, however, recognizes the messenger’s voice as that of Jerry Cruncher, the odd-job man at Tellson’s, and accepts his message. The note that Jerry passes him reads: “Wait at Dover for Mam’selle.” Lorry instructs Jerry to return to Tellson’s with this reply: “Recalled to Life.” Confused and troubled by the “blazing strange message,” Jerry rides on to deliver it.

Summary: Chapter 3: The Night Shadows A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. . . . (See Important Quotations Explained ) The narrator ponders the secrets and mysteries that each human being poses to every other: Lorry, as he rides on in the mail coach with two strangers, constitutes a case in point. Dozing, he drifts in and out of dreams, most of which revolve around the workings of Tellson’s bank. Still, there exists “another current of impression that never cease[s] to run” through Lorry’s mind—the notion that he makes his way to dig someone out of a grave. He imagines repetitive conversations with a specter, who tells Lorry that his body has lain buried nearly eighteen years. Lorry informs his imaginary companion that he now has been “recalled to life” and asks him if he cares to live. He also asks, cryptically, “Shall I show her to you?

Will you come and see her?” The ghost’s reaction to this question varies, as he sometimes claims that he would die were he to see this woman too soon; at other times, he weeps and pleads to see her immediately. Summary: Chapter 4: The Preparation The next morning, Lorry descends from the coach at the Royal George Hotel in Dover. After shedding his travel clothes, he emerges as a well-dressed businessman of sixty. That afternoon, a waiter announces that Lucie Manette has arrived from London. Lorry meets the “short, slight, pretty figure” who has received word from the bank that “some intelligence—or discovery” has been made “respecting the small property of my poor father . . . so long dead.” After reiterating his duties as a businessman, Lorry relates the real reason that Tellson’s has summoned Lucie to Paris. Her father, once a reputed doctor, has been found alive.

“Your father,” Lorry reports to her, “has been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris, and we are going there: I, to identify him if I can: you, to restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort.” Lucie goes into shock, and her lively and protective servant, Miss Pross, rushes in to attend to her. Analysis: Chapters 1–4 The opening sentence of the novel makes clear, as the title itself does, the importance of doubles in the text: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. . . . Doubles prove essential to the novel’s structure, plot, and dominant themes. The idea of resurrection, a theme that emerges in these early pages, would not be possible without some form of its opposite—death.

In order to pave the way for the first such resurrection—the recalling to life of the long-imprisoned Doctor Manette—Dickens does much to establish a dark, ominous tone suggestive of death. From the mist-obscured route of the Dover mail coach to the darkly paneled room in which Lorry meets Lucie Manette, the opening chapters brim with gloomy corners and suggestive shadows. 1 Literature.org - The Online Literature Library Charles Dickens Chapter 1 - The Period IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs.

Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood. France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history.

It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting.

Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St.

Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fir on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence. All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand.

Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures- the creatures of this chronicle among the rest- along the roads that lay before them. The Online Literature Library is sponsored by Knowledge Matters Ltd. Last updated A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Search eText, Read Online, Study, Discuss. Introduction FROM: Appreciations and Criticisms of the works of Charles Dickens, by Gilbert Keith Chesterton As an example of Dickens's literary work, A Tale of Two Cities is not wrongly named. It is his most typical contact with the civic ideals of Europe. All his other tales have been tales of one city. He was in spirit a Cockney; though that title has been quite unreasonably twisted to mean a cad. By the old sound and proverbial test a Cockney was a man born within the sound of Bow bells. That is, he was a man born within the immediate appeal of high civilisation and of eternal religion. Shakespeare, in the heart of his fantastic forest, turns with a splendid suddenness to the Cockney ideal as being the true one after all.

For a jest, for a reaction, for an idle summer love or still idler summer hatred, it is well to wander away into the bewildering forest of Arden. It is well that those who are sick with love or sick with the absence of love, those who weary of the folly of courts or weary yet more of their wisdom, it is natural that these should trail away into the twinkling twilight of the woods. Yet it is here that Shakespeare makes one of his most arresting and startling assertions of the truth. Here is one of those rare and tremendous moments of which one may say that there is a stage direction, "Enter Shakespeare." He has admitted that for men weary of courts, for men sick of cities, the wood is the wisest place, and he has praised it with his purest lyric ecstasy.

But when a man enters suddenly upon that celestial picnic, a man who is not sick of cities, but sick of hunger, a man who is not weary of courts, but weary of walking, then Shakespeare lets through his own voice with a shattering sincerity and cries the praise of practical human civilisation: If ever you have looked on better days, If ever you have sat at good men's feasts, If ever been where bells have knolled to church, If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear Or know what 't is to pity and be pitied. There is nothing finer even in Shakespeare than that conception of the circle of rich men all pretending to rough it in the country, and the one really hungry man entering, sword in hand, and praising the city. "If ever been where bells have knolled to church"; if you have ever been within sound of Bow bells; if you have ever been happy and haughty enough to call yourself a Cockney. We must remember this distinction always in the case of Dickens.

Dickens is the great Cockney, at once tragic and comic, who enters abruptly upon the Arcadian banquet of the ï¿½sthetics and says, "Forbear and eat no more," and tells them that they shall not eat "until necessity be served." If there was one thing he would have favoured instinctively it would have been the spreading of the town as meaning the spreading of civilisation. And we should (I hope) all favour the spreading of the town if it did mean the spreading of civilisation. The objection to the spreading of the modern Manchester or Birmingham suburb is simply that such a suburb is much more barbaric than any village in Europe could ever conceivably be. And again, if there is anything that Dickens would have definitely hated it is that general treatment of nature as a dramatic spectacle, a piece of scene-painting which has become the common mark of the culture of our wealthier classes. Despite many fine pictures of natural scenery, especially along the English roadsides, he was upon the whole emphatically on the side of the town. He was on the side of bricks and mortar. He was a citizen; and, after all, a citizen means a man of the city.

His strength was, after all, in the fact that he was a man of the city. But, after all, his weakness, his calamitous weakness, was that he was a man of one city. For all practical purposes he had never been outside such places as Chatham and London. He did indeed travel on the Continent; but surely no man's travel was ever so superficial as his. He was more superficial than the smallest and commonest tourist. He went about Europe on stilts; he never touched the ground. There is one good test and one only of whether a man has travelled to any profit in Europe. An Englishman is, as such, a European, and as he approaches the central splendours of Europe he ought to feel that he is coming home. If he does not feel at home he had much better have stopped at home. England is a real home; London is a real home; and all the essential feelings of adventure or the picturesque can easily be gained by going out at night upon the fiats of Essex or the cloven hills of Surrey. Your visit to Europe is useless unless it gives you the sense of an exile returning. Your first sight of Rome is futile unless you feel that you have seen it before.

Thus useless and thus futile were the foreign experiments and the continental raids of Dickens. He enjoyed them as he would have enjoyed, as a boy, a scamper out of Chatham into some strange meadows, as he would have enjoyed, when a grown man, a steam in a police boat out into the fens to the far east of London. But he was the Cockney venturing far; he was not the European coming home. He is still the splendid Cockney Orlando of whom I spoke above; he cannot but suppose that any strange men, being happy in some pastoral way, are mysterious foreign scoundrels. Dickens's real speech to the lazy and laughing civilisation of Southern Europe would really have run in the Shakespearean words: but whoe'er you be Who in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time. If ever you have looked on better things, If ever been where bells have knolled to church. If, in short, you have ever had the advantage of being born within the sound of Bow bells. Dickens could not really conceive that there was any other city but his own.

It is necessary thus to insist that Dickens never understood the Continent, because only thus can we appreciate the really remarkable thing he did in A Tale of Two Cities. It is necessary to feel, first of all, the fact that to him London was the centre of the universe. He did not understand at all the real sense in which Paris is the capital of Europe. He had never realised that all roads lead to Rome. He had never felt (as an Englishman can feel) that he was an Athenian before he was a Londoner. Yet with everything against him he did this astonishing thing. He wrote a book about two cities, one of which he understood; the other he did not understand. And his description of the city he did not know is almost better than his description of the city he did know. This is the entrance of the unquestionable thing about Dickens; the thing called genius; the thing which every one has to talk about directly and distinctly because no one knows what it is. For a plain word (as for instance the word fool) always covers an infinite mystery. A Tale of Two Cities is one of the more tragic tints of the later life of Dickens.

It might be said that he grew sadder as he grew older; but this would be false, for two reasons. First, a man never or hardly ever does grow sad as he grows old; on the contrary, the most melancholy young lovers can be found forty years afterwards chuckling over their port wine. And second, Dickens never did grow old, even in a physical sense. What weariness did appear in him appeared in the prime of life; it was due not to age but to overwork, and his exaggerative way of doing everything. To call Dickens a victim of elderly disenchantment would be as absurd as to say the same of Keats. Such fatigue as there was, was due not to the slowing down of his blood, but rather to its unremitting rapidity. He was not wearied by his age; rather he was wearied by his youth. And though A Tale of Two Cities is full of sadness, it is full also of enthusiasm; that pathos is a young pathos rather than an old one. Yet there is one circumstance which does render important the fact that A Tale of Two Cities is one of the later works of Dickens.

This fact is the fact of his dependence upon another of the great writers of the Victorian era. And it is in connection with this that we can best see the truth of which I have been speaking; the truth that his actual ignorance of France went with amazing intuitive perception of the truth about it. It is here that he has most clearly the plain mark of the man of genius; that he can understand what he does not understand. Dickens was inspired to the study of the French Revolution and to the writing of a romance about it by the example and influence of Carlyle. Thomas Carlyle undoubtedly rediscovered for Englishmen the revolution that was at the back of all their policies and reforms. It is an entertaining side joke that the French Revolution should have been discovered for Britons by the only British writer who did not really believe in it. Nevertheless, the most authoritative and the most recent critics on that great renaissance agree in considering Carlyle's work one of the most searching and detailed power. Carlyle had read a great deal about the French Revolution. Dickens had read nothing at all, except Carlyle. Carlyle was a man who collected his ideas by the careful collation of documents and the verification of references.

Dickens was a man who collected his ideas from loose hints in the streets, and those always the same streets; as I have said, he was the citizen of one city. Carlyle was in his way learned; Dickens was in every way ignorant. Dickens was an Englishman cut off from France; Carlyle was a Scotsman, historically connected with France. And yet, when all this is said and certified, Dickens is more right than Carlyle. Dickens's French Revolution is probably more like the .real French Revolution than Carlyle's. It is difficult, if not impossible, to state the grounds of this strong conviction. One can only talk of it by employing that excellent method which Cardinal Newman employed when he spoke of the "notes" of Catholicism. There were certain "notes" of the Revolution. One note of the Revolution was the thing which silly people call optimism, and sensible people call high spirits. Carlyle could never quite get it, because with all his spiritual energy he had no high spirits. That is why he preferred prose to poetry. He could understand rhetoric; for rhetoric means singing with an object. But he could not understand lyrics; for the lyric means singing without an object; as every one does when he is happy.

Now for all its blood and its black guillotines, the French Revolution was full of mere high spirits. Nay, it was full of happiness. This actual lilt and levity Carlyle never really found in the Revolution, because he could not find it in himself. Dickens knew less of the Revolution, but he had more of it. When Dickens attacked abuses, he battered them down with exactly that sort of cheery and quite one-sided satisfaction with which the French mob battered down the Bastille. Dickens utterly and innocently believed in certain things; he would, I think, have drawn the sword for them. Carlyle half believed in half a hundred things; he was at once more of a mystic and more of a sceptic. Carlyle was the perfect type of the grumbling servant; the old grumbling servant of the aristocratic comedies. He followed the aristocracy, but he growled as he followed. He was obedient without being servile, just as Caleb Balderstone was obedient without being servile. But Dickens was the type of the man who might really have rebelled instead of grumbling. He might have gone out into the street and fought, like the man who took the Bastille.

It is somewhat nationally significant that when we talk of the man in the street it means a figure silent, slouching, and even feeble. When the French speak of the man in the street, it means danger in the street. No one can fail to notice this deep difference between Dickens and the Carlyle whom he avowedly copied. Splendid and symbolic as are Carlyle's scenes of the French Revolution, we have in reading them a curious sense that everything is happening at night. In Dickens even massacre happens by daylight. Carlyle always assumes that because things were tragedies therefore the men who did them felt tragic. Dickens knows that the man who works the worst tragedies is the man who feels comic; as for example, Mr. Quilp. The French Revolution was a much simpler world than Carlyle could understand; for Carlyle was subtle and not simple. Dickens could understand it, for he was simple and not subtle. He understood that plain rage against plain political injustice; he understood again that obvious vindictiveness and that obvious brutality which followed.

"Cruelty and the abuse of absolute power," he told an American slave-owner, "are two of the bad passions of human nature." Carlyle was quite incapable of rising to the height of that uplifted common-sense. He must always find something mystical about the cruelty of the French Revolution. The effect was equally bad whether he found it mystically bad and called the thing anarchy, or whether he found it mystically good and called it the rule of the strong. In both cases he could not understand the common-sense justice or the common-sense vengeance of Dickens and the French Revolution. Yet Dickens has in this book given a perfect and final touch to this whole conception of mere rebellion and mere human nature. Carlyle had written the story of the French Revolution and had made the story a mere tragedy. Dickens writes the story about the French Revolution, and does not make the Revolution itself the tragedy at all. Dickens knows that an outbreak is seldom a tragedy; generally it is the avoidance of a tragedy. All the real tragedies are silent. Men fight each other with furious cries, because men fight each other with chivalry and an unchangeable sense of brotherhood.

But trees fight each other in utter stillness; because they fight each other cruelly and without quarter. In this book, as in history, the guillotine is not the calamity, but rather the solution of the calamity. The sin of Sydney Carton is a sin of habit, not of revolution. His gloom is the gloom of London, not the gloom of Paris. Fan of this book? Help us introduce it to others by writing a better introduction for it . It's quick and easy, click here . Recent Forum Posts on A Tale of Two Cities What was Dickens trying to accomplish by writing A Tale of Two Cities? | eNotes What was Dickens trying to accomplish by writing A Tale of Two Cities? ladyvols1 | High School Teacher | (Level 3) Senior Educator Posted on February 5, 2009 at 12:47 AM Charles Dickens had several reasons for writing "A Tale of Two Cities." One reason, and the basic reason any author publishes a novel is to earn money. Dickens had this novel published in a serial format with a few chapters being released each month.

The people would get hooked on the story and continue to buy the publication each month so they could see what happened next in the story. Another reason Dickens wrote this novel was to try something different. He had always written about the Victorian era but with this book he was delving into a new area. This novel would be a romantic novel set in the time of the French Revolution. The two cities being Paris and London. Dickens was not very kind to either city and part of his story spends considerable time discussing the unfairness of the Feudal system and how badly the King treated his subjects. Most people who have read this book either love it or really hate it. The critics during this era could not agree as to whether or not this experiment in writing was sucessful or not. January 10, 2010 at 6:34 AM I am not sure Dickens wanted to show anything. A novel is not a report or a thesis, or an attempt to demonstrate something. That is not the way great writers work. They try to convey their feelings, their emotions. They are great writers precisely because they are better and have fewer inhibitions than others in exposing their feelings and putting them in words.

When successful, they achieve in this way a "truth of the heart" that readers are able to relate to, even after decades or even centuries. The creative process is a mystery, a miracle. In some cases, the trigger is a compelling experience or memory that fires the writer's imagination. Often the writing is slow and painful at the beginning, while the basic building blocks are being devised and the characters are being sketched. Then the novel and the characters may take a life of their own. Dickens was indeed very much affected by his family's experience as well as his own in his early years and was particularly sensitive to the situation fo the poor. This clearly transpires in all his work, including Tale of course. He was also aware that the poor are not necessarily "good" and may indeed become very resentful and violent when humiliated for too long. Maybe when Dickens wrote Tale in 1859, he had a feeling that history had repeated itself: France had experienced another revolution in 1848 and another Napoleon was ruling France when he was writting. This may be why he got interested in the French revolution of 1789.

From this perspective, Tale may have been a cautionary tale: if you, the rich, do not pay attention to the plight of the people you may have a bloody revolution on your hands. This warning applied to France, but could very well be extended to England where the conditions of the poor were not much better than in France. like 0 dislike 0 Charles Dickens - Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss. Charles Dickens Biography of Charles Dickens Charles Dickens (1812-1870), English Victorian era author wrote numerous highly acclaimed novels including his most autobiographical David Copperfield (1848-1850); ï¿½Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night.

It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.ï¿½ As a prolific 19th Century author of short stories, plays, novellas, novels, fiction and non, during his lifetime Dickens became known the world over for his remarkable characters, his mastery of prose in the telling of their lives, and his depictions of the social classes, mores and values of his times. Some considered him the spokesman for the poor, for he definitely brought much awareness to their plight, the downtrodden and the have-nots. He had his share of critics like Virginia Woolf and Henry James , but also many admirers, even into the 21st Century. Gilbert Keith Chesterton wrote numerous introductions to his works, collected in his Appreciations and Criticisms of the works of Charles Dickens (1911) and in his highly acclaimed biography Charles Dickens (1906) he writes: He was the voice in England of this humane intoxication and expansion, this encouraging of anybody to be anything.

Critic John Forster (1812-1876) became his best friend, editor of many of his serialisations, and official biographer after his death, publishing The Life of Charles Dickens in 1874. Scottish poet and author Andrew Lang (1844-1912) included a letter to Dickens in his Letters to Dead Authors (1886). Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) in his Little Journeys (1916) series follows in the footsteps of Dickens through his old haunts in London. George Gissing (1857-1903) also respected his works and wrote several introductions for them, as well as his Charles Dickens: A Critical Study (1898) in which he writes: Humour is the soul of his work. Like the soul of man, it permeates a living fabric which, but for its creative breath, could never have existed.

While George Orwell (1903-1950) was at times a critic of Dickens, in his 1939 essay Charles Dickens he, like many others before, again brought to light the author still relevant today and worthy of continued study: Nearly everyone, whatever his actual conduct may be, responds emotionally to the idea of human brotherhood. Dickens voiced a code which was and on the whole still is believed in, even by people who violate it. It is difficult otherwise to explain why he could be both read by working people (a thing that has happened to no other novelist of his stature) and buried in Westminster Abbey. Charles John Huffman Dickens was born on 7 February, 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England (now the Dickens Birthplace Museum) the son of Elizabeth nï¿½e Barrow (1789-1863) and John Dickens (c.1785-1851) a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. John was a congenial man, hospitable and generous to a fault which caused him financial difficulties throughout his life. He inspired the character Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield (1849-1850).

Charles had an older brother Frances, known as Fanny, and younger siblings Alfred Allen, Letitia Mary, Harriet, Frederick William known as Fred, Alfred Lamert, and Augustus Newnham. When Dickensï¿½ father was transferred to Chatham in Kent County, the family settled into the genteel surroundings of a larger home with two live-in servantsï¿½one being Mary Weller who was young Charlesï¿½ nursemaid. Dickens was a voracious reader of such authors as Henry Fielding, Daniel Defoe , and Oliver Goldsmith . When he was not attending the school of William Giles where he was an apt pupil, he and his siblings played games of make-believe, gave recitations of poetry, sang songs, and created theatrical productions that would spark a lifelong love of the theatre in Dickens. But household expenses were rising and in 1824, John Dickens was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea Prison. All of the family went with him except for Charles who, at the age of twelve, was sent off to work at Warrenï¿½s Shoe Blacking Factory to help support the family, pasting labels on boxes.

He lived in a boarding house in Camden Town and walked to work everyday and visited his father on Sundays. It was one of the pivotal points in Dickensï¿½ education from the University of Hard Knocks and would stay with him forever. The idyllic days of his childhood were over and he was rudely introduced to the world of the working poor, where child labour was rampant and few if any adults spared a kind word for many abandoned or orphaned children. Many of his future characters like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Philip Pirrip would be based on his own experiences. The appalling working conditions, long hours and poor pay typical of the time were harsh, but the worst part of the experience was that when his father was released his mother insisted he continue to work there. While he felt betrayed by and resented her for many years to come, his father arranged for him to attend the Wellington House Academy in London as a day pupil from 1824-1827, perhaps saving him from a life of factory work and setting him on the road to becoming a writer. In 1827 the Dickens were evicted from their home in Somers Town for unpaid rent dues and Charles had to leave school.

He obtained a job as a clerk in the law firm of Ellis and Blackmore. He soon learned shorthand and became a court reporter for the Doctors Commons. He spent much of his spare time reading in the British Museumï¿½s library and studying acting. In 1830 he met and fell in love with Maria Beadnell, though her father sent her to finishing school in Paris a few years later. In 1833, his first story of many, ï¿½A Dinner at Poplar Walkï¿½ was published in the Monthly Magazine. He also had some sketches published in the Morning Chronicle which in 1834 he began reporting for and adopted the pseudonym ï¿½Bozï¿½. At this time Dickens moved out on his own to live as a bachelor at Furnivalï¿½s Inn, Holborn. His father was arrested again for debts and Charles bailed him out, and for many years later both his parents and some of his siblings turned to him for financial assistance. Dickensï¿½ first book, a collection of stories titled Sketches by Boz was published in 1836, a fruitful year for him.

He married Catherine Hogarth, daughter of the editor of the Evening Chronicle on 2 April, 1836, at St. Lukeï¿½s in Chelsea. A year later they moved into 48 Doughty Street, London, now a museum. The couple would have ten children: Charles Culliford Boz (b.1837), Mary (Mamie) (1838-1838), Kate Macready (b.1839), Walter Landor (b.1841), Francis (Frank) Jeffrey (b.1844), Alfred Tennyson (b.1845), Sydney Smith (b.1847), Henry Fielding (b.1849), Dora Annie (1850-1851), Edward Bulwer Lytton (b.1852). Also in the same year, 1836, Dickens became editor for Bentleyï¿½s Miscellany of which Pickwick Papers (1836-1837) was first serialised. Thus began a prolific and commercially successful period of Dickensï¿½ life as a writer.

Most of his novels were first serialised in monthly magazines as was a common practice of the time. Oliver Twist between 1837 and 1839 was followed by Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), and Barnaby Rudge (1841). Dickensï¿½ series of five Christmas Books were soon to follow; A Christmas Carol (1843), The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1848). Dickens had found a readership who eagerly anticipated his next installments. After the death of Catherineï¿½s sister Mary in 1837 the couple holidayed in various parts of England. After Dickens resigned from Bentleyï¿½s in 1839, they moved to 1 Devonshire Terrace, Regentï¿½s Park. Further travels to the United States and Canada in 1842 led to his controversial American Notes (1842).

Martin Chuzzlewit was first serialised in 1843. The next year the Dickens traveled through Italy and settled in Genoa for a year of which his Pictures From Italy (1846) was written. Dombey and Son (1846) was his next publication, followed by David Copperfield (1849). In 1850 he started his own weekly journal Household Words which would be in circulation for the next nine years. From 1851 to 1860 the Dickens lived at Tavistock House where Charles became heavily involved in amateur theatre. He wrote, directed, and acted in many productions at home with his children and friends, often donating the money raised from ticket sales to those in need. He collaborated with Wilkie Collins on the drama No Thoroughfare (1867). Novels to follow were Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1855-1857). In 1856 Dickens purchased Gadï¿½s Hill, his last place of residence near Rochester in Kent County.

He continued in the theatre as well, acting in Wilkie Collins ï¿½ The Frozen Deep in 1857 with actress Ellen Ternan (1839-1914) playing opposite him. The two fell in love and Dickens would leave Catherine a year later. By now Dickens was widely read in Europe and in 1858 he set off on a tour of public readings. A year later he founded his second weekly journal All the Year Round, the same year A Tale of Two Cities (1859) was first serialised. Great Expectations (1860-1861) was followed by Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865). In 1865, traveling back from Paris with Ellen and her mother, they were involved in the disastrous Staplehurst train crash, of which Dickens sustained minor injuries, but never fully recovered from the post-traumatic shock of it. Two years later he traveled to America for a reading tour. His ï¿½farewell readingsï¿½ took place in Londonï¿½s St. James Hall.

Charles Dickens died from a cerebral hemorrhage on 9 June 1870 at his home, Gadï¿½s Hill. He is buried in Poetï¿½s Corner of Westminster Abbey, London, his tomb inscribed thus: ï¿½He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of Englandï¿½s greatest writers is lost to the world.ï¿½ Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish historian and author, upon hearing of his death said: The good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever-friendly, noble Dickensï¿½every inch of him an honest man. Unfinished at his death, The Mystery of Edwin Drood was published in 1870. My father had left a small collection of books in a little room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own) and which nobody else in our house ever troubled.

From that blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time, - they, and the Arabian Nights, and the Tales of the Genii, - and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me; I knew nothing of it. It is astonishing to me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did.ï¿½Ch. 4, David Copperfield Biography written by C.D. Merriman for Jalic Inc. Copyright Jalic Inc. 2006. All Rights Reserved. The above biography is copyrighted. Do not republish it without permission. Forum Discussions on Charles Dickens Recent Forum Posts on Charles Dickens

Question: Who wrote "A Tale of Two Cities"?
Answer: Charles Dickens