A Tale of Two Cities: Introduction by Simon Schama

Lucie Manette had been separated from her father for eighteen years while he languished in Paris’s most feared prison, the Bastille. Finally reunited, the Manettes’s fortunes become inextricably intertwined with those of two men, the heroic aristocrat Darnay, and the dissolute lawyer, Carton. Their story, which encompasses violence, revenge, love and redemption, is grippingly played out against the backdrop of the terrifying brutality of the French Revolution.

A Tale of Two Cities begins on a muddy English road in an atmosphere charged with mystery and drama, and it ends in the Paris of the French Revolution with one of the most famous acts of self-sacrifice in literature. In between lies one of Charles Dickens’s most exciting books- a historical novel that, generation after generation, has given readers access to the profound human dramas that lie behind cataclysmic social and political events.

Famous for the character of Sydney Carton, who sacrifices himself upon the guillotine- It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done -the novel is also a powerful study of crowd psychology and the dark emotions aroused by the Revolution, and is illuminated by Dickens’s lively comedy.

This edition reprints the original Everyman introduction by G. K. Chesterton and includes sixteen illustrations by Phiz.