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  • Published: 23 October 2000
  • ISBN: 9780679641322
  • Imprint: RH US eBook Adult
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 464

A Tale of Two Cities




Puffin Classics: the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child

A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens's great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author's novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes--imprisonment, injustice, and social anarchy, resurrection and the renunciation that fosters renewal.

"Dickens's French Revolution is probably more like the French Revolution than Carlyle's," said G. K. Chesterton. "In dignity and eloquence A Tale of Two Cities almost stands alone among the books by Dickens."

  • Published: 23 October 2000
  • ISBN: 9780679641322
  • Imprint: RH US eBook Adult
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 464

Other books in the series

Emma
Persuasion
A Dog's Heart
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
Selected Poetry
On Sparta
Man and Superman
Saint Joan
Botchan
Kusamakura
Sanshiro
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in Hampshire on February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in the navy pay office, who was well paid but often ended up in financial troubles. When Dickens was twelve years old he was send to work in a shoe polish factory because his family had been taken to the debtors' prison. His career as a writer of fiction started in 1833 when his short stories and essays began to appear in periodicals. The Pickwick Papers, his first commercial success, was published in 1836. The serialisation of Oliver Twist began in 1837. Many other novels followed and The Old Curiosity Shop brought Dickens international fame and he became a celebrity in America as well as Britain. Charles Dickens died on 9 June 1870. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

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