15 h 23 minAudiobook16 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Between London and Paris, a family seeks peace while old cruelties feed a revolution.
In Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, Lucie Manette finds her father broken by eighteen years in the Bastille. Her patient care helps Doctor Manette begin again. In England, Charles Darnay seeks a life beyond his noble French family, while Sydney Carton, a gifted lawyer who resembles him, believes his own life has no worth.
Across the Channel, anger gathers in the streets of Paris. Ernest Defarge’s wine shop becomes a center of unrest, and Madame Defarge knits a secret register of enemies. As the French Revolution draws closer, private lives face public violence. Love offers shelter, but family history threatens to pull these people into the growing storm.
What you’ll discover
- Two cities, shared fears Explore London and Paris as Dickens sets their differences and likenesses side by side.
- A fragile return to life Follow Doctor Manette as he struggles to rebuild his mind under Lucie’s patient care.
- A lawyer without hope Meet Sydney Carton, whose gifts and love stand against his sense of a wasted life.
- The roots of vengeance See how cruelty and neglect turn private suffering into a hunger for public revenge.
- Mystery with gathering force Follow a swift plot of doubles, secrets, and sacrifice, carried by short scenes and cliffhangers.
Is it for you?
This summary suits readers who like historical fiction with a strong plot, and anyone who wants to know what happens in the French Revolution through ordinary lives. If you want a light comic Dickens full of eccentrics, you may find this one darker and more serious.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A buried man is recalled to life
- A London trial is won by a likeness
- Cruelty in France plants the seeds of anger
- Love draws three men toward one woman
- Echoing footsteps warn of a coming storm
- The Bastille falls and vengeance spreads
- A letter calls Darnay back to Paris
- Doubles, rebirth and the price of love
- How Dickens builds the book
Who’s who
- Sydney CartonA gifted but dissipated London lawyer who looks like Darnay, believes his life is wasted, and loves Lucie Manette without hope.
- Charles DarnayA decent young Frenchman who gives up his noble family name, lives in England, and marries Lucie, but cannot escape his family's past.
- Lucie ManetteA kind young woman who brings her father back from ruin and holds her family together with patience and love.
- Doctor Alexandre ManetteA physician held in the Bastille for eighteen years, who is freed in broken health and tries to rebuild his mind.
- Madame DefargeThe wine shop keeper's wife in Saint Antoine, who knits a secret register of enemies and wants vengeance on the nobility.
- Ernest DefargeA Paris wine seller and leader of the revolutionaries of his district, who once served Doctor Manette and guards his secret.
- Jarvis LorryA careful, loyal clerk of Tellson's Bank who brings Lucie to her father and remains a faithful friend to the family.
- Miss ProssLucie's devoted, fierce and outspoken companion, who would do anything to protect her darling girl.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Historia de dos ciudades
by Charles Dickens· 1859
Lives in London and Paris entwine during the French Revolution.
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Language: Español
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
A buried man is recalled to life
The story opens in November 1775 on the Dover road. A mail coach labors up a muddy hill, and its passengers are wary of each other and of highwaymen. One of them is Mr Jarvis Lorry, an elderly clerk of Tellson's Bank, a stiff and old-fashioned London firm. A messenger rides up with a note for him, and Lorry answers with three words that puzzle the messenger: Recalled to life. The words set the pattern for the whole book.
Lorry is on his way to France with a delicate task. At Dover he meets Lucie Manette, a young woman of seventeen with golden hair and a calm, sensitive face. She was raised as an orphan in England, and she believed her father had died long ago. Lorry now tells her that he is alive, that the bank has found him, and that he has been held in secret for eighteen years. Lucie is overwhelmed and nearly faints, but she agrees to go and see him.
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The author
Charles Dickens
1812–1870 · English novelist
Charles Dickens was an English novelist born in Portsmouth in 1812. He lived in London and later at Gad’s Hill Place in Kent, where he died in 1870. His books include The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1849–1850), and Great Expectations (1860–1861).
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.”
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What is A Tale of Two Cities about?
It follows a doctor freed after eighteen years in the Bastille, his daughter Lucie, and the men who love her, as their lives are drawn between London and Paris during the French Revolution.
Is A Tale of Two Cities a true story?
No, the characters are invented, but the setting is real. Dickens wrote it in 1859 and drew on Thomas Carlyle's history of the French Revolution for the events around the storming of the Bastille and the Terror.
Which are the two cities in the title?
The two cities are London and Paris. Dickens moves between them and compares them, showing the injustice and danger in each, and the way events in France reach into the lives of people in England.
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