Classic Review
A TALE OF TWO CITIES Lisa Reynolds Reviews This Classic From Charles Dickens “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ...” The famous opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities (1859) by Charles Dickens, sets the entire novel up perfectly. Set in Paris and London prior to and during the French Revolution, the book is only one of two historical fictions which Dickens wrote in his lifetime (the other being Barnaby Rudge) and is the novel Dickens seems to have been most proud of. He called it “The best story I have written”. It is interesting to see that this particular story was one he held in such high esteem over his other pieces, considering he wrote so many works of fiction, which are also deemed Classics, 28 EILE Magazine
such as Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Bleak House, David Copperfield and Hard Times. Like most of Dickens’ novels, there are many characters to get to know. However, there are less in this than in some of his other works, which helps the reader to get to know the characters. Divided into three books: Book the First: Recalled to Life, Book the Second: The Golden Thread and Book the Third: The Track of a Storm, we as readers are plunged into a world of chaos, where emotions and the lack of emotions are running high.
daughter, Lucie, who had thought that her father was dead. Her governess, Miss Pross, is there when she hears the news, and Lorry brings Lucie to Saint Antoine in Paris to be reunited with her father. Her father is currently staying with his former servant, Ernest Defarge, and his wife, Thérèse, and has developed an obsession with shoe-making, which he learned in prison to stop himself from overthinking. They bring Manette back to England.
The first book begins in 1775, when an employee of Tellson’s Bank in London gives a message to one of the managers of the bank, Jarvis Lorry, in regard to Alexandre Manette, who is a French physician just released from the Bastille after serving 18 years in prison.
The second book begins in 1780, when French emigré, Charles Darnay, is on trial for treason against the British Crown. The key witnesses are two British spies, including John Barsad, whose eyewitness account falls apart after confusing a barrister, Sydney Carton, with the accused. Darnay is subsequently acquitted.
Lorry goes to meet Manette’s
When Darnay returns to