A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most exciting novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, it tells the story of a family threatened by the terrible events of the past. Dr Manette, wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for eighteen years, is finally released and is reunited with his daughter Lucie, who despite her French ancestry has been brought up in London. Lucie falls in love with Charles Darnay, who has abandoned wealth and title in France because of his political convictions. When revolution breaks out in Paris, Darnay returns to the city to help an old family servant, but there he is arrested because of the crimes committed by his relations. Lucie, with their daughter and her father, follows him across the Channel, thus putting all their lives in danger.

The first seventeen titles in the series:

JANE AUSTEN
1 Emma
2 Pride and Prejudice
3 Sense and Sensibility
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
4 Jane Eyre
EMILY BRONTË
5 Wuthering Heights
G. K. CHESTERTON
6 Father Brown: Selected Stories
CHARLES DICKENS
7 A Tale of Two Cities
8 Great Expectations
9 Oliver Twist
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
10 Madame Bovary
THOMAS HARDY
11 Tess of the D'Urbervilles
12 The Mayor of Casterbridge
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
13 The Scarlet Letter
EDGAR ALLAN POE
14 Tales of Mystery and Imagination
BRAM STOKER
15 Dracula
OSCAR WILDE
16 The Picture of Dorian Gray
VIRGINIA WOOLF
17 Mrs Dalloway

COLLECTOR'S LIBRARY 7

ISBN 1-904633-06-4

Contents

Preface	11
Characters	13

BOOK THE FIRST

Recalled to Life

1	The Period	17
2	The Mail	20
3	The Night Shadows	28
4	The Preparation	34
5	The Wine Shop	49
6	The Shoemaker	63

BOOK THE SECOND

The Golden Thread

1	Five Years Later	81
2	A Sight	89
3	A Disappointment	97
4	Congratulatory	116
5	The Jackal	125
6	Hundreds of People	132
7	Monseigneur in Town	148
8	Monseigneur in the Country	161
9	The Gorgon's Head	168
10	Two Promises	182
11	A Companion Picture	192
12	The Fellow of Delicacy	198
13	The Fellow of no Delicacy	208
14	The Honest Tradesman	214
15	Knitting	228
16	Still Knitting	244
17	One Night	258
18	Nine Days	264
19	An Opinion	273
20	A Plea	282
21	Echoing Footsteps	288
22	The Sea Still Rises	304
23	Fire Rises	311
24	Drawn to the Loadstone Rock	320

BOOK THE THIRD

The Track of a Storm

1	In Secret	339
2	The Grindstone	355
3	The Shadow	363
4	Calm in Storm	370
5	The Wood-Sawyer	377
6	Triumph	385
7	A Knock at the Door	394
8	A Hand at Cards	401
9	The Game Made	419
10	The Substance of the Shadow	435
11	Dusk	455
12	Darkness	461
13	Fifty-Two	472
14	The Knitting Done	488
15	The Footsteps Die Out For Ever	504

Afterword	513
Bibliography	521
Biography	521

Illustrations

Under the plane tree	2
The mail	27
The shoemaker	65
The likeness	111
Congratulations	117
The stoppage at the fountain	159
Mr Stryver at Tellson's Bank	201
The spy's funeral	219
The wine shop	231
The accomplices	283
The sea rises	297
Before the prison tribunal	347
The knock on the door	399
The double recognition	405
In the Bastille	437
After the sentence	457

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 near Portsmouth, where his father worked as a naval clerk. Living in London in 1824, Dickens was sent by his family to work in a blacking-warehouse, while his father was arrested and imprisoned for debt. Fortunes improved and Dickens returned to school, eventually becoming a parliamentary reporter. In December 1832, his first piece of fiction was published by a magazine, and by 1836 he had begun work on The Pickwick Papers. He focused his career on writing, producing fourteen highly successful novels, as well as journalism, shorter fiction and travel books. He died in 1870.

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Preface

When I was acting, with my children and friends, in Mr Wilkie Collins's drama of The Frozen Deep, I first conceived the main idea of this story. A strong desire was upon me then, to embody it in my own person; and I traced out in my fancy, the state of mind of which it would necessitate the presentation to an observant spectator, with particular care and interest.

As the idea became familiar to me, it gradually shaped itself into its present form. Throughout its execution, it has had complete possession of me; I have so far verified what is done and suffered in these pages, as that I have certainly done and suffered it all myself.
Whenever any reference (however slight) is made here to the condition of the French people before or during the Revolution, it is truly made, on the faith of trustworthy witnesses. It has been one of my hopes to add something to the popular and picturesque means of understanding that terrible time, though no one can hope to add anything to the philosophy of Mr Carlyle's wonderful book.