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Alex Lemon: IMG Everyone Called Me "Happy"

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A Tale of Two Cities (Bantam Classic)

by Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities (Bantam Classic) Cover

ISBN13: 9780553211764
ISBN10: 0553211765
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

With his sublime parting words, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done..." Sidney Carton joins that exhalted group of Dickensian characters who have earned a permanent place in the popular literary imagination. His dramatic story, set against the volcanic fury of the French Revolution and pervaded by the ominous rumble of the death carts trundling toward the guillotine, is the heart-stirring tale of a heroic soul in an age gone mad. A masterful pageant of idealism, love, and adventure — in a Paris bursting with revolutionary frenzy, and a London alive with anxious anticipation — A Tale of Two Cities is one of Dickens's most energetic and exciting works.

Review:

“[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 Introduction by Simon Schama

Synopsis:

Dickens's classic tale of the French Revolution brings to life a time of terror and treason, and chronicles a starving people who rise in frenzy and hate to overthrow a corrupt and decadent regime. This 150th anniversary edition features a new Afterword. Revised reissue.
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About the Author

Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in London backing warehouse, where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week. His father John Dickens, was a warmhearted but improvident man. When he was condemned the Marshela Prison for unpaid debts, he unwisely agreed that Charles should stay in lodgings and continue working while the rest of the family joined him in jail. This three-month separation caused Charles much pain; his experiences as a child alone in a huge city–cold, isolated with barely enough to eat–haunted him for the rest of his life.

When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter and finally an author. With Pickwick Papers (1836-7) he achieved immediate fame; in a few years he was easily the post popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. Olive Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable, A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1855-7) reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British Society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) complete his major works.

Dickens’s marriage to Catherine Hoggarth produced ten children but ended in separation in 1858. In that year he began a series of exhausting public readings; his health gradually declined. After putting in a full day’s work at his home at Gads Hill, Kent on June 8, 1870, Dickens suffered a stroke, and he died the following day.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
D.B. Pacini, July 17, 2009 (view all comments by D.B. Pacini)
THE REASON I LOVE ORANGES:

I first read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens in 1969. My friend Bucky, a French-Canadian, gave me the book as a birthday present with a bouquet of daises, a blue balloon, and a wooden crate of oranges. We sat on the beach eating oranges from morning until sunset, reading A Tale of Two Cities to one another. It was one of my favorite birthdays. It is still one of my favorite books. It is probably the reason oranges are my favorite fruit.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780553211764
Afterword:
Koch, Stephen
Author:
Koch, Stephen
Author:
Dickens, Charles
Publisher:
Bantam Classics
Location:
Toronto
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
History
Subject:
Classics
Subject:
Novels and novellas
Subject:
Literature
Subject:
France
Subject:
British and irish fiction (fictional works by
Subject:
British and irish
Subject:
France History Revolution, 1789-1799 Fiction.
Subject:
Historical fiction
Subject:
War stories
Edition Number:
Bantam classic ed.
Edition Description:
Bibliography: p. 367-369.
Series:
Bantam Classic
Series Volume:
1612
Publication Date:
June 1984
Binding:
Mass Market Paperbound
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
416
Dimensions:
6.84x4.48x.89 in. .44 lbs.
Age Level:
14-22
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