A Tale of Two Cities: a Book Review

A Tale of Two Cities: a Book Review

A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities was a great novel. The setting took in the year 1775. The author’s name is Charles Dickens. The character I liked the most and cared for was Sydney Carton. In this novel Sydney Carton was an excellent character.

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England in 1812. As the second of eight children in a very poor family, he lived a difficult childhood. Eventually, his father was sent to debtor's prison, and Dickens himself went to work at the age of twelve to help pay off the family's debt. This troublesome time scarred Dickens deeply and provided him with big material for such stories as Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield. Dickens's writing provides a devoted, kind chronicle of the condition of the urban poor in 19th century England. During his lifetime, Dickens enjoyed immense popularity, in part because of his active characterizations and in part because he published his novels in installments, making them readily affordable to a greater number of people.

The year is 1775, and social ills plague both France and England. Jerry Cruncher, an odd-job-man who works for Tellson's Bank, stops the Dover mail-coach with an urgent message for Jarvis Lorry. The message instructs Lorry to wait at Dover for a young woman, and Lorry responds with the cryptic words, “Recalled to Life.” At Dover, Lorry is met by Lucie Manette, a young orphan whose father, a once-eminent doctor whom she supposed dead, has been discovered in France. Lorry escorts Lucie to Paris, where they meet Defarge, a former servant of Doctor Manette, who has kept Manette safe in a garret. Driven mad by eighteen years in the Bastille, Manette spends all of his time making shoes, a hobby he learned while in prison. Lorry assures Lucie that her love and devotion can recall her father to life, and indeed they do.

Sydney Carton proves the most dynamic character in A Tale of Two Cities. He first appears as a lazy,...

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