The story follows the events of the Manette and St. By all means read this novel, and see this film, but don't base your view of that historical event on the novel or film.

In his essay on Dickens, George Orwell says that his constant image of carts filled of guillotine victims made the very word 'tumbril' sinister. It colors Dickens' version, where nothing good seems to come from the French revolutionaries. It might have been better if he had read some of the French historians, for Carlyle was a great colorist (he created the 'green-eyed' monster image of Maximillian Robespierre that most British and Americans still adhere to), but he saw the Revolution from an ultra-conservative view. He had prepared on the background to 'A Tale of Two Cities' by reading Thomas Carlyle's classic 'History of the French Revolution'.

It also has the best introductory paragraph of any of his novels (see the 'summary' line to see the opening of it). But the second novel (published in 1859 - as Dickens reached the heights of his literary powers) became one of the greatest historical novels ever written. Ironically enough, the following year Dickens wrote a novella of 100 pages which became one of his perennial favorite works - 'A Christmas Carol'. The first one (published in 1842) was interesting, as it dealt with a serious riot that almost overthrew the monarchy in 1780.

Compared to this Dickens only squeezed out 'Barnaby Rudge' and 'A Tale of Two Cities'. His rival, William Thackeray, was into the past and constructed several notable tales of 18th Century life ('Henry Esmond', 'The Virginians', 'Denis Duval', 'Barry Lyndon', 'Catherine'). Twice, however, he essayed the historical novel. Most of the fiction of Charles Dickens is set firmly in the 19th Century, from roughly 1820 to 1865 or so.

A tale of two cities book 1