A Tale of Two Cities (1859) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

show spoilers

• Sydney Carton: A young, highly intelligent lawyer who faces his own personal demons of alcoholism and unrequited love.
• Charles Darnay: A French aristocrat. Darnay denounces his family name of St. Evermonde and moves to England, where he works as a tutor. He was put on trial for spying for France, and Lorry and the Manettes are witnesses for the case.
• Lucie Manette: A beautiful young woman recognized for her kindness and compassion. After being reunited with her father, Alexandre Manette, she cares for him and remains devoted to him.
• Dr. Alexandre Manette: A doctor from Beauvais, France, who was secretly imprisoned in the Bastille for 18 years and suffers some mental trauma from the experience. After he is released, he is nursed back to health by his daughter, Lucie, in England.
• Mr. Jarvis Lorry: An English banker for Tellson's in London. Befriends the Manette family. Even though he is a man of business, he softens his heart for the situation with Lucie Manette and Charles Darnay.
• Monsieur Ernest Defarge: Owner of a wine-shop in a Paris suburb. He housed Doctor Manette after his release from the Bastille.
• Madame Therese Defarge: A hard, vengeful woman who is married to Ernest Defarge.
• The Jacquerie: Also known as "Jacques". They are also revolutionaries.
• Jerry Cruncher: Person who runs errands for the bank.
• Mrs. Cruncher: Wife of Mr. Cruncher. She is very smart, kind and also religious.
• Jerry Cruncher Junior: Jerry's aspiring son.
• Charles Evremonde: Son of French aristocrat, who leaves France for England. Also known as Charles Darnay.
• Miss Pross: Caretaker of Lucie Manette. A very protective woman.
• Mr. C.J. Stryver: A boorish lawyer who employs Sydney Carton. Stryver is Darnay's defense lawyer in England and aspires briefly to marry Lucie.
• Marquis St. Evremonde: Evil French aristocrat and Charles Darnay's uncle. He unremorsefully runs over a small boy. He only gives the father, Gaspard, a gold coin and leaves.
• Roger Cly: English spy for the bailey, and England.
• John Barsad: An English spy, who doubles as Miss Pross's brother, Solomon Pross.
• Gaspard: Tall man who's bent on killing St. Evermonde because he ran over his son. Due to this, he joins the French Revolution.
• Monsieur Gabelle: The Postmaster
• The Vengeance: Friend of Madame Defarge. Very bloodthirsty.
• C.J. Stryver: An over-pompus lawyer who takes all of the credit for Sydney Carton's brilliant work as a lawyer.

Quotes edit see section history

• “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done: it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

  Sydney Carton

• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

• “All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing very way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, make scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from a women's heads, which were squeezed dry into infants' mouths; others made small mud embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions; . . .”

  Narrator (Dickens)

• “...Nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by Heaven.”

  The Seamtress

• “They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.”

  Narrator

• “If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you.”

  Sydney Carton to Lucie

• “The preceding relative positions of himself and Lucie were reversed, yet only as the liveliest gratitude and affection could reverse them, for he could have had no pride but in rendering some service to her who had rendered so much to him.”

• “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• The Bastille
• Paris
• London

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Charles Dickens (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• BBC's Big Read (April 2003, #63)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PR4571 .M8
• Dewey: 823.8

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( D ) › Dickens, Charles
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Historical
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Librivox: A Tale of Two Cities audio book read by Paul Adams (Total running time: 15:29:14)
• Project Gutenberg: A Tale of Two Cities full text
• Book and Film Review: Do I really need to write anything other than the first and last lines? It is on the very short list of novels that have amazing and utterly memorable first lines and last lines (the only other books that really make that list are Lolita, The Princess Bride and The Catcher in the Rye). That first line completely sets the scene (although it continues with the next paragraphs, giving an indelible impression of place and time — Dickens may have done his research in Carlyle, but his writing provides a better impression of the actual time and place). The last line gives a poetic send-off to one of literature’s best characters. This is, of course, Sydney Carton, the best of all Dickens characters. He has a hard cynical edge, betrayed by the boredom of life. He saves the life of Charles Darnay early in the novel almost as a lark. He falls in love with Lucie Manette but allows her to marry Darnay because he knows what a waste he has made of his life. But all this while, the shadow of history in France is close at hand: “Not only would the echoes die away, as though the steps had gone; but, echoes of other steps that never come would be heard in their stead, and would die away for good when they seemed close at hand.”
• Wikipedia Article: A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature.

Movie Connections edit see section history

• A Tale ofTwo Cities (1935) (IMDb): Staring Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, and Basil Rathbone
• A Tale of Two Cities (1958) (IMDb): Staring Dirk Bogarde, Dorothy Tutin, and Christopher Lee
• A Tale of Two Cities (1980) (TV) (IMDb): Staring Chris Sarandon, Alice Krige, and Peter Cushing
• A Tale of Two Cities (1980) (TV Mini-Series) (IMDb): Starring Paul Shelley, Judy Parfitt and Sally Osborne.
• A Tale of Two Cities (1989) (TV Mini-Series) (IMDb): Starring James Wilby, John Mills and Serena Gordon.

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history