A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. It is 1775, and Mr. Jarvis Lorry is traveling to Dover to meet Lucie Manette. He tells her that she is not an orphan as she had been told from a young age. He now says that he will travel with her to Paris to meet her father, who has recently been released from the Bastille. Doctor Manette is housed in the Defarges' wine-shop and has lost his reason, but he starts to regain it when he meets his daughter and is transported back to London. Five years later, Charles Darnay is tried in London on a charge of treason for providing English secrets to the French and Americans during the outbreak of the American Revolution. The dramatic appearance of Mr. Sydney Carton, who looks remarkably like him, precludes any positive identification and allows Darnay's acquittal. Darnay, Mr. Carton, and Mr. Stryver all fall in love with Lucie Manette, who was a tearful, unwilling witness for the prosecution. Although they all make an attempt to woo her, she favors Charles Darnay and marries him. Carton comes to her house alone and declares that while he expects no return of his love, he would do anything for her or for anyone whom she loves. Darnay has ominously hinted to Doctor Manette of his concealed identity, and he reveals to his father-in-law on the morning of his wedding that he is a French nobleman who has renounced his title.