The classic story of feuding families set against a backdrop of London
and Paris during the French Revolution reveals the author's belief
that from the ashes of the past can come the birth of a more
enlightened age.
The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature:
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."
From the Back Cover:
The storming of the Bastille ... the death carts with their doomed
human cargo...the swift drop of the guillotine blade -- this is the
French Revolution that Charles Dickens vividly captures in his famous
work A Tale of Two Cities. With dramatic eloquence, he brings
to life a time of terror and treason, a starving people rising in
frenzy and hate to overthrow a corrupt and decadent regime. With
insight and compassion, he casts his novel of unforgettable scenes
with unforgettable characters; the sinister Madame Defarge, knitting
her patterns of death; the gentle Lucie Manette, unswerving in her
devotion to her broken father; the heroic Sydney Carton, who gives
his life for the love of a woman who would never be his.
