The novel opens in 1775 as Doctor Manette is released after eighteen years of secret imprisonment in the Bastille, his mind damaged so badly that he obsessively makes shoes. His daughter Lucie, raised in England believing him dead, brings him to London, where they are drawn into the treason trial of Charles Darnay, a French emigre who has renounced his aristocratic family.
Darnay is saved partly thanks to the dissolute barrister Sydney Carton, who looks strikingly like him and who quietly loves Lucie. Meanwhile in the Paris suburb of Saint Antoine, the wine-shop keeper Defarge and his implacable wife knit and plot as resentment against the nobility, embodied by the cruel Marquis St. Evremonde, builds towards revolution and the Terror.
Shorter and more plot-driven than many Dickens novels, it was serialised in his weekly magazine All the Year Round in 1859. It contrasts the two cities and explores sacrifice, resurrection, mob violence and the cycle of oppression and vengeance. It is often cited as one of the best-selling novels ever published.
Book details
| Author | Charles Dickens |
|---|---|
| First published | 1859 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 448 |
| Setting | London and Paris, 1775-1793 |
Themes
- Revolution
- Sacrifice
- Resurrection
- Injustice
- Doubles
Who should read it
Readers who like historical drama and want a Dickens novel driven by suspense and the French Revolution.
If you liked this, try
- Les Miserables
- The Scarlet Pimpernel
- Great Expectations