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  • I had to read it for Lit class
    It was hard to dig into
    But in the end I loved Sydney Carton!

    

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• ― Acsharp said on Jul 31, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • Although one of his shortest, this certainly cannot be said to be Dickens at his best. I think brevity and Sidney Carton's final speech are the only thing going for this entry into the Dickens canon. Try David Copperfield as a jumping off point for enjoying Dickens.

    

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• ― guaddess said on May 30, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

One of Dickens's most haunting novels, A Tale of Two Cities has, since its first serial publication in 1859, continued to exert a grip on the popular imagination. The two cities of the title--a lethal, vengeful Paris during the French Revolution and a leafy, tranquil London--are only one of the novel's stark dichotomies, which are continued as Syndey Carton and Charles Darnay are drawn toward their separate destinies--their lives touched by the same woman.

In his absorbing Introduction, Richard Maxwell discusses the novel's intricate design, in which Dickens magnificently interweaves epic drama with personal tragedy. Comparing it to Thomas Carlyle's French Revolution and Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Maxwell argues that A Tale of Two Cities "stands as Dickens's most memorable effort to see a world in a very small space; a work short by its nature . . . yet curiously at its ease among giants."

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