Love and sacrifice among Londoners and Parisians caught in the French Revolution, ending in one man's redeeming act on the guillotine. Dickens's meditation on resurrection and the Terror.
Books that mention A Tale of Two Cities (7)
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut: “They would ask such impudent questions as, “Whuffo I want to read no Tale of Two Cities? Whuffo?””
2666 by Roberto Bolaño: “A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers.”
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth: “It’s like A Tale of Two Cities.’ Amit laughed at this pleasant young fellow’s analogy, but was forced to come to the defence of his own city.”
Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell: “My father read Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities to me and my brothers when we were children, and at the very end, when Sydney Carton dies in Charles Darney's place, my father wept.”
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: “That was Rahel being Sydney Carton being Charles Darnay, as he stood on the steps, waiting to be guillotined, in the Classics Illustrated comic's version of A Tale of Two Cities.”
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett: “she began her Christmas broadcast with the opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities ('It was the best of times.'”
Gai-Jin by James Clavell: “Same passage as Oliver Twist, above — "the riveting Tale of Two Cities."”