A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens THE EMC MASTERPIECE SERIES Access Editions SERIES EDITOR Robert D. Sheperd EMC/Paradigm Publishing St. Paul, Minnesota Staff Credits: For EMC/Paradigm Publishing, St. Paul, Minnesota Laurie Skiba Eileen Slater Editor Editorial Consultant Shannon O’Donnell Taylor Jennifer J. Anderson Associate Editor Assistant Editor For Penobscot School Publishing, Inc., Danvers, Massachusetts Editorial Design and Production Robert D. Shepherd Charles Q. Bent President, Executive Editor Production Manager Christina E. Kolb Diane Castro Managing Editor Compositor Sara Hyry Janet Stebbings Editor Compositor Allyson Stanford Editor Sharon Salinger Copyeditor Marilyn Murphy Shepherd Editorial Advisor ISBN 0-8219-1651-3 Copyright © 1998 by EMC Corporation All rights reserved. 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Published by EMC/Paradigm Publishing 875 Montreal Way St. Paul, Minnesota 55102 Printed in the United States of America. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 xxx 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 Table of Contents The Life and Works of Charles Dickens . v Time Line of Dickens’s Life . viii The Historical Context of A Tale of Two Cities............x Characters in A Tale of Two Cities ...................xv Echoes . xvii Illustration . xviii BOOK THE FIRST Chapter 1. 1 Chapter 2 . 4 Chapter 3 . 10 Chapter 4 . 15 Chapter 5 . 27 Chapter 6 . 39 BOOK THE SECOND Chapter 1. 52 Chapter 2 . 59 Chapter 3 . 66 Chapter 4 . 80 Chapter 5 . 87 Chapter 6 . 94 Chapter 7 . 109 Chapter 8 . 119 Chapter 9 . 125 Chapter 10 . 136 Chapter 11 . 144 Chapter 12 . 148 Chapter 13 . 155 Chapter 14 . 163 Chapter 15 . 174 Chapter 16 . 186 Chapter 17 . 197 Chapter 18 . 202 Chapter 19 . 209 Chapter 20 . 217 Chapter 21 . 223 Chapter 22 . 235 Chapter 23 . 241 Chapter 24 . 249 BOOK THE THIRD Chapter 1. 264 Chapter 2 . 276 Chapter 3 . 283 Chapter 4 . 288 Chapter 5 . 294 Chapter 6 . 300 Chapter 7 . 310 Chapter 8 . 316 Chapter 9 . 329 Chapter 10 . 341 Chapter 11 . 356 Chapter 12 . 364 Chapter 13 . 373 Chapter 14 . 385 Chapter 15 . 397 Plot Analysis of A Tale of Two Cities . 406 Creative Writing Activities . 409 Critical Writing Activities . 411 Projects. 413 Glossary . 415 Handbook of Literary Terms . 433 iv A TALE OF TWO CITIES THE LIFE AND WORKS OF Charles Dickens Charles Dickens. (1812-1870). Charles Dickens was born at Portsea near Portsmouth, England, the second of eight chil- dren. His early childhood seems to have been a happy one, especially when the family lived in Chatham and Charles devoted himself to his studies, reading his father’s collection of classic novels and plays and attending a school run by a minister who appreciated Charles’s scholastic abilities. Charles Dickens’s father, however, liked to live beyond his means; soon after the family moved to London when Charles was eleven, his father landed in debtor’s prison. Charles had to leave school and support himself with a fac- tory job labeling bottles for four months before his father was released and the family reunited. Afterward, Charles Charles Dickens Dickens never spoke of this experience, but the pain of it shaped Dickens’s writing, particularly in his descriptions of the sufferings of poor children, orphans, and other victims of injustice. This experience also created within Dickens a grim determination to succeed. After leaving school again at age fifteen, Dickens worked as a clerk in the law firm of Ellis and Blackmore at Gray’s Inn. There, Dickens diligently studied court matters and short- hand, knowledge that Dickens soon used to launch a jour- nalistic career, starting as a court reporter. By 1832 he was a general reporter for the True Sun and a parliamentary reporter for the Mirror of Parliament. On the side, he began to write short fictional character sketches, which he published in various magazines under the pseudonym Boz. Having attracted considerable attention for their lively humor, these early writings were published in book form in 1836 as Sketches by Boz. The year that followed proved to be pivotal for Dickens. Just weeks after Sketches by Boz was issued, the first monthly installment of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, was pub- lished, and Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of a fellow journalist. Dickens’s sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, came to live with the young couple, and Dickens developed a romantic fixation on his wife’s vivacious younger sister. Mary, however, contracted a sudden illness and died in Charles’s arms. Critics have suggested that several of Dickens’s female characters, including Lucie, the heroine of A Tale of Two Cities, may have been modeled at least in part on Mary Hogarth. THE LIFE AND WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS v Nearly all of Dickens’s major works of fiction were first published in serial form, appearing in weekly or monthly magazines, sometimes with hundreds of thousands of read- ers waiting eagerly for each new installment. The Pickwick Papers had a slow start but quickly became a publishing phe- nomenon, and Dickens enjoyed a lavish social life and friendships with many celebrities of the day. Nevertheless, success did not keep him from writing prodigiously. In the following twelve years, his major works included Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Dombey and Son. During this time, Dickens moved from humor to increasingly complex social criticism of a world that was ruled by business interests rather than human feeling, one which was suddenly dominated by the new machines of the industrial revolution. David Copperfield, published in 1849, is Dickens’s most autobiographical novel; it marks the point at which he had come to a full understanding of himself and society. In the next decade, he published some of his greatest works, includ- ing Hard Times, Bleak House, and A Tale of Two Cities. During this time Dickens also founded and edited Household Words, which was succeeded by All the Year Round, weekly magazines in which he serialized some of his own works. In 1859, after years of increasing marital tensions, Dickens separated from his wife and moved with most of his ten chil- dren to a country house at Gad’s Hill, near his childhood home in Chatham. There he wrote Our Mutual Friend and Great Expectations. In 1867 he left England for a successful reading tour of the United States, but the traveling took a tremendous toll on him and he returned to England the fol- lowing year in declining health. Even so, he insisted on mak- ing a tour of England in 1869, and a physical collapse that forced him to suspend the tour did not keep him from giv- ing a farewell series of readings in London in the winter of 1870. On June 8, after a full day of work on his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens had a fatal stroke and died the following day. In addition to working on novels and working as an edi- tor, Dickens loved the theater, and led an amateur company for many years. As you will read in The Historical Context of A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens wrote this novel after being inspired by a play his theater company produced, in which he himself starred. Dickens’s theatrical work also contrib- uted to the success of his reading tours in England and the United States. vi A TALE OF TWO CITIES Dickens did more than write: he also worked hard to rec- tify many of the social injustices he described in his novels, involving himself in welfare projects including slum clear- ance, schools for poor children, and homes for unwed mothers. Dickens’s social concerns emerge as an important theme in A Tale of Two Cities, especially in the descriptions of the disparity between the lives of the wealthy French nobility and the impoverished and oppressed French peas- antry. While Dickens’s writings are a powerful call for social reform, Dickens’s works are not only about society’s ills but about humanity and human society as a whole. Several gen- erations of readers have admired Dickens’s insight into human nature and the human capacity for both good and evil as well as his gently humorous approach to human eccentricity and frailty. The most popular author of his day, Dickens created enduring works of literature that still win the affection and admiration of readers today. THE LIFE AND WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS vii Time Line of Dickens’s Life Feb. 7, 1812 Charles Dickens is born in Portsea near Portsmouth, England, to John and Elizabeth Dickens. 1817–1821 Family resides at Chatham, Kent; Dickens reads voraciously and flourishes in quiet country setting. 1822 Dickens’s family moves to London. 1824 Dickens’s father jailed for bad debts. Dickens takes a factory job for four months before his father is released from prison. 1827 Dickens leaves school again to work for Ellis and Blackmore, a Gray’s Inn law firm. 1828 Dickens begins work as a freelance court reporter. 1834 Dickens begins publishing popular series of character studies in maga- zines under the title Sketches by Boz. 1833 Dickens begins work for the Morning Chronicle as a reporter. 1836 Dickens marries Catherine Hogarth. 1836–1837 Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers, is published in serial form and quickly finds unprecedented success. 1837 Oliver Twist is published. Dickens’s sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, dies sud- denly at age seventeen. 1838–1839 Nicholas Nickleby is published.