A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens author Richard Maxwell editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd

Published:30th Jan '03

Should be back in stock very soon

This paperback is available in another edition too:

A Tale of Two Cities cover

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...'

Vividly interweaving epic historical drama with personal tragedy, Dickens's gripping novel depicts the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, as they become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette, the daughter of a political prisoner. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror, and they soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

Edited with an Introduction and notes by Richard Maxwell

“[A Tale of Two Cities] has the best of Dickens and the worst of Dickens: a dark, driven opening, and a celestial but melodramatic ending; a terrifyingly demonic villainess and (even by Dickens’ standards) an impossibly angelic heroine. Though its version of the French Revolution is brutally simplified, its engagement with the immense moral themes of rebirth and terror, justice, and sacrifice gets right to the heart of the matter…for every reader in the past hundred and forty years and for hundreds to come, it is an unforgettable ride.”—from the Everyman's Library introduction by Simon Schama

  • Runner-up for The BBC Big Read Top 100 2003
  • Short-listed for BBC Big Read Top 100 2003

ISBN: 9780141439600

Dimensions: 197mm x 128mm x 23mm

Weight: 372g

544 pages