Dickens' Greatest Novel

"This is a stellar association of the bestseller among all Dickens's titles, regularly cited as the all-time bestselling novel in any language, with over 200 million copies sold." - The Guardian

✓ Plot

A Tale of Two Cities is an 1859 historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.

✓ About

Dickens' best-known work of historical fiction, A Tale of Two Cities is regularly cited as the best-selling novel of all time. In 2003, the novel was ranked 63rd on the BBC's The Big Read poll. The novel has been adapted for film, television, radio, and the stage, and has continued to have an influence on popular culture.

This edition is unique due to the Dmitry Mintz, computer-made illustrations, which were not featured in the original edition, making it a must for collectors.

...It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only...

✓ From review

Before I read the novel this fall, I assumed this sentence was a meaningless series of hyperboles, unworthy of its master. Imagine my mortification to find that, on the contrary, it is a perfectly tuned overture to the story that follows. With each crescendo and fall, it draws the reader into the rhythms of a plot driven by pairs, doubles and echoes, political contradictions and moral extremes. It is, in fact, a model first sentence, one for the ages, and I apologize to it on humanity's behalf for our having so prodigally abused its conceit in college papers, headlines on the Internet and other venues unbecoming of its excellence.
Radhika Jones, TIME