A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - 1859
Introduction
A Tale of Two Cities is set before and during the French Revolution, and examines the harsh conditions and brutal realities of life during this difficult time. While the conditions before the revolution were deplorable, things were far from ideal afterward as the violence toward, and oppression of, one class was reversed once the poor overthrew the nobility. In the end, the only glimmer of hope comes with the heroic sacrifice of Sydney Carton, as he gives his life for the good of others.
According to Dickens's Preface, the inspiration for the story came from two sources. The first was Wilkie Collins's play The Frozen Deep, in which two rivals unknowingly embark on the same doomed Arctic expedition, and one ends up dying to save his rival. The second was Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution: A History. The details in the portions of A Tale of Two Cities that take place in France closely echo Carlyle's work, and critics have noted that Carlyle's account seems to be Dickens's only source of historical information.
One of the most-discussed aspects of A Tale of Two Cities is the ambivalence with which Dickens seems to regard the revolution and the revolutionaries.
