A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens

• Publisher: Race Point Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781631061523
• eBook ISBN: 9781627887397
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Explore Dickens' classic tale of order and disorder, death and resurrection with A Tale of Two Cities.

Taking place in London and Paris in the eighteenth century, in the years leading up to and during the French Revolution, Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is one of injustice, revenge, rebirth, love, and sacrifice.

Originally published in thirty-one weekly installments in 1859, this novel is uncharacteristic for Dickens as it lacks comic relief, as well as a protagonist, though London and Paris are considered to be the true protagonists of the story. The turbulence found in this epic tale is also believed to reflect the turmoil in Dickens' personal life at the time. Complete and unabridged, A Tale of Two Cities is an essential collectible that is both elegant and portable and features a new introduction by Brian Bartell.

The Knickerbocker Classics bring together the works of classic authors from around the world in stunning gift editions to be collected and enjoyed.
 

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLES DICKENS

1812	7 February	Charles John Huffam Dickens is born to John and Elizabeth Barrow Dickens at Landport in the Portsea Island section of Portsmouth
1813		Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is published by Thomas Egerton, Whitehall, London
1815	18 June	Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo by the combined armies of the Seventh Coalition
1816		The Dickens family moves to Chatham to be close to the Naval Yard where John Dickens works as a clerk in the pay office
1818		Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is published by Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, Finsbury Square, London
1820	29 January	King George III dies and is succeeded by George IV
1821		John Dickens loses his job due to reforms in the Admiralty, and the family moves to Camden Town, London
1823		The British Museum is rebuilt and expanded
1824	2 February	John Dickens is arrested for debt and sent to Marshalsea Debtors Prison Charles is sent to Warren’s Blacking Factory at Hungerford Market and is put to work to help pay off the family’s debt
	28 May	John Dickens is released from prison and the family returns to Camden Town, though Charles is left to work through the summer at a blacking (dye) factory
	Fall	Charles returns home and attends a day school on Hempstead Road, London
1825	Fall	Charles is sent to Wellington House Academy in Camden Town
	27 September	The first passenger steam train trip is made between Stockton and Darlington in Durham, England
1827	May	Charles takes a position as a junior clerk at a law office in Holborn Court, Grey’s Inn, London
1828	22 January	Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, is elected prime minister
	November	Charles leaves the law firm to become a freelance court reporter at Doctor’s Commons Courts, London
1829	June	Robert Peel establishes London’s Metropolitan Police
1830	26 June	King George IV dies and is succeeded by his brother, William IV Maria Beadnell’s parents respond to Charles’s ardor for their daughter by sending her to school in Paris, thereby ending the relationship a few years later
1831		Dickens is taken on by the Morning Chronicle as a political journalist to report on election campaigns and the demonstrations in favor of the Great Reform Act
1832	4 June	The Great Reform Act becomes law, enfranchising about five hundred thousand new voters
1833		Dickens’s first story to be published, “Dinner on Poplar Walk,” appears in the London periodical Monthly Magazine
1834		Dickens adopts the pseudonym “Boz” Dickens’s friend, editor of the Evening Chronicle George Hogarth, introduces him to his daughter Catherine
1835	March	Dickens and Catherine are engaged
1836	February	Dickens’s collection of previously published short stories, Sketches by Boz, is published by John Macrone, London
	30 March	The initial installment of Dickens’s first novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, is published by Chap...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• BOOK THE FIRST: RECALLED TO LIFE
• I. THE PERIOD
• II. THE MAIL
• III. THE NIGHT SHADOWS
• IV. THE PREPARATION
• V. THE WINE-SHOP
• VI. THE SHOEMAKER
• BOOK THE SECOND: THE GOLDEN THREAD
• I. FIVE YEARS LATER
• II. A SIGHT
• III. A DISAPPOINTMENT
• IV. CONGRATULATORY
• V. THE JACKAL
• VI. HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE
• VII. MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN
• VIII. MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY
• IX. THE GORGON’S HEAD
• X. TWO PROMISES
• XI. A COMPANION PICTURE
• XII. THE FELLOW OF DELICACY
• XIII. THE FELLOW OF NO DELICACY
• XIV. THE HONEST TRADESMAN
• XV. KNITTING
• XVI. STILL KNITTING
• XVII. ONE NIGHT
• XVIII. NINE DAYS
• XIX. AN OPINION
• XX. A PLEA
• XXI. ECHOING FOOTSTEPS
• XXII. THE SEA STILL RISES
• XXIII. FIRE RISES
• XXIV. DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK
• BOOK THE THIRD: THE TRACK OF A STORM
• I. IN SECRET
• II. THE GRINDSTONE
• III. THE SHADOW
• IV. CALM IN STORM
• V. THE WOOD-SAWYER
• VI. TRIUMPH
• VII. A KNOCK AT THE DOOR
• VIII. A HAND AT CARDS
• IX. THE GAME MADE
• X. THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW
• XI. DUSK
• XII. DARKNESS
• XIII. FIFTY-TWO
• XIV. THE KNITTING DONE
• XV. THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOR EVER
• THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLES DICKENS
• REVIEWS AND NOTICES
• FURTHER READING