Fiction · 1859
A Tale of Two Cities
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Between London and Paris in the years before and during the French Revolution, a released prisoner of the Bastille, his daughter, a French aristocrat who has renounced his name and a dissolute English lawyer who resembles him are drawn together, and finally to the guillotine.
Charles Dickens published the novel in weekly parts in 1859. It is his most concentrated historical fiction, shorter than most of his books, and its opening and closing sentences are among the best known in the language.
Its three books — “Recalled to Life”, “The Golden Thread”, “The Track of a Storm” — are given complete.
Contents
- Book the First — Recalled to Life
- Chapter I — The Period
- Chapter II — The Mail
- Chapter III — The Night Shadows
- Chapter IV — The Preparation
- Chapter V — The Wine-shop
- Chapter VI — The Shoemaker
- Book the Second — the Golden Thread
- Chapter I — Five Years Later
- Chapter II — A Sight
- Chapter III — A Disappointment
- Chapter IV — Congratulatory
- Chapter V — The Jackal
- Chapter VI — Hundreds of People
- Chapter VII — Monseigneur in Town
- Chapter VIII — Monseigneur in the Country
- Chapter IX — The Gorgon’s Head
- Chapter X — Two Promises
- Chapter XI — A Companion Picture
- Chapter XII — The Fellow of Delicacy
- Chapter XIII — The Fellow of No Delicacy
- Chapter XIV — The Honest Tradesman
- Chapter XV — Knitting
- Chapter XVI — Still Knitting
- Chapter XVII — One Night
- Chapter XVIII — Nine Days
- Chapter XIX — An Opinion
- Chapter XX — A Plea
- Chapter XXI — Echoing Footsteps
- Chapter XXII — The Sea Still Rises
- Chapter XXIII — Fire Rises
- Chapter XXIV — Drawn to the Loadstone Rock
- Book the Third — the Track of a Storm
- Chapter I — In Secret
- Chapter II — The Grindstone
- Chapter III — The Shadow
- Chapter IV — Calm in Storm
- Chapter V — The Wood-Sawyer
- Chapter VI — Triumph
- Chapter VII — A Knock at the Door
- Chapter VIII — A Hand at Cards
- Chapter IX — The Game Made
- Chapter X — The Substance of the Shadow
- Chapter XI — Dusk
- Chapter XII — Darkness
- Chapter XIII — Fifty-two
- Chapter XIV — The Knitting Done
- Chapter XV — The Footsteps Die Out for Ever
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Subjects
- Historical fiction
- France — History — Revolution, 1789-1799 — Fiction
- London (England) — History — 18th century — Fiction
- War stories
- Executions and executioners — Fiction
- French — England — London — Fiction
- Lookalikes — Fiction
- British — France — Paris — Fiction
- Paris (France) — History — 1789-1799 — Fiction
About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
Part of Victorian Fiction.
Source mind
About the author
1812–1870 · Victorian
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born at Portsmouth and worked as a child in a blacking factory while his father was imprisoned for debt — an experience he drew on for the rest of his life. A parliamentary reporter by twenty, he became the most popular novelist in English with The Pickwick Papers (1836–37) and never lost that place: Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861) followed. He died at Gad’s Hill, Kent.
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