A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Darnay does everything to free himself from his heritage and history. But he happens to be native to the ruling class in France and we find ourselves in the time of the French Revolution. A Tale of Two Cities [1859] is Charles Dickens’s powerful novel about perhaps the most significant individual political event in European history: the French Revolution, written 70 years after it took place. The metropolises of Paris and London are here opposites, vividly animated, yet also serve as the stages for people who are ultimately forced to take their destinies into their own hands. CHARLES DICKENS [1812–1870], born in Portsmouth, England, was the most popular novelist of his time. He created a fictional world that reflected the social and technological changes during the Victorian era. Among his most famous works are David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, and The Pickwick Papers.