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A Tale of Two Cities

by Charles Dickens

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500+
First published
1859
Pages
388
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14 h 59 min · 45 parts

  1. I.I: The Period

    6:49

  2. I.II: The Mail

    14:53

  3. I.III: The Night Shadows

    12:07

  4. I.IV: The Preparation

    29:57

  5. I.V: The Wineshop

    26:23

  6. I.VI: The Shoemaker

    23:42

  7. II.I: Five Years Later

    14:19

  8. II.II: A Sight

    17:55

  9. II.III: A Disappointment

    36:14

  10. II.IV: Congratulatory

    17:33

  11. II.V: The Jackal

    14:30

  12. II.VI: Hundreds of People

    26:20

  13. II.VII: Monseigneur in Town

    22:40

  14. II.VIII: Monseigneur in the Country

    13:37

  15. II.IX: The Gorgon's Head

    27:44

  16. II.X: Two Promises

    21:07

  17. II.XI: A Companion Picture

    7:53

  18. II.XII: The Fellow of Delicacy

    14:46

  19. II.XIII: The Fellow of no Delicacy

    18:18

  20. II.XIV: The Honest Tradesman

    24:56

  21. II.XV: Knitting

    26:16

  22. II.XVI: Still Knitting

    30:34

  23. II.XVII: One Night

    11:53

  24. II.XVIII: Nine Days

    16:57

  25. II.XIX: An Opinion

    21:09

  26. II.XX: A Plea

    7:25

  27. II.XXI: Echoing Footsteps

    26:18

  28. II.XXII: The Sea Still Rises

    13:01

  29. II.XXIII: Fire Rises

    19:51

  30. II.XXIV: Drawn to the Loadstone Rock

    30:00

  31. III.I: In Secret

    26:31

  32. III.II: The Grindstone

    14:44

  33. III.III: The Shadow

    12:44

  34. III.IV: Calm in Storm

    15:02

  35. III.V: The Woodsawyer

    16:43

  36. III.VI: Triumph

    17:29

  37. III.VII: A Knock at the Door

    11:45

  38. III.VIII: A Hand at Cards

    30:26

  39. III.IX: The Game Made

    27:45

  40. III.X: The Substance of the Shadow

    35:49

  41. III.XI: Dusk

    9:15

  42. III.XII: Darkness

    19:30

  43. III.XIII: Fiftytwo

    23:52

  44. III.XIV: The Knitting Done

    28:16

  45. III.XV: The Footsteps Die Out For Ever

    14:37

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a public domain work.

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About this book

Eighteen years in the Bastille have left Doctor Manette making shoes in a garret, unable to recognise the daughter who comes for him. Getting him out is the easy part. The Revolution he was jailed before has not happened yet, and when it arrives it reaches the people who assumed a Channel crossing had settled matters.

Dickens worked with Carlyle's history open beside him and it shows. The mobs frighten in a way his comic crowds never do, and Madame Defarge knits her list of the condemned without a trace of the sentiment he usually could not resist. The ending rests entirely on a drunk, wasted barrister, and whether he carries it is an argument that started in 1859 and has not stopped.

From the opening pages

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.

Contents

About the author

Charles Dickens - BDeBooks
Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and journalist. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius.

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Book facts

First published
1859
Reading time
About 10 hours
Pages
388
Language
English
Formats
PDF, EPUB, Read online, Audiobook