A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel published in 1859. It is set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution, a time that England was also on the verge of a social revolution. Dickens open the novel with a sentence that has become famous worldwide: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ……”
The book starts with the story of a French Doctor Manette who was framed by a noble Marquis St. Evremonde and imprisoned in the Bastille in Paris for 18 years. After he is released, he moves to London with his daughter Lucie whom he has never met. On their way, they encounter a youth named Charles Darnay and get his attentive care. Darnay falls in love with Lucie. However, it turns out that Darnay is the nephew of Marquis Evrémonde…...The whole story unfolds the conflicting aspects of the French Revolution. On one hand, the Revolution led to the deaths of many innocent people. On the other hand, the Revolution was a response to generation of injustices, imposed by the French aristocrats represented by the Evrémonde brothers.