A Tale of Two Cities

Summary

The novel follows the Manette family between London and Paris as the French Revolution builds toward the Terror, entangling them with the disgraced aristocrat Charles Darnay and the dissolute lawyer Sydney Carton. Dickens builds the story toward Carton's final act of self sacrifice, one of the most famous closing scenes in English fiction. Its opening line about the best and worst of times has become one of the most quoted sentences in the language.