A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. It was published in weekly instalments in his magazine All the Year Round and then as a book. The story follows Lucie Manette, her father, a doctor released after eighteen years in the Bastille, the French aristocrat Charles Darnay and the dissolute English lawyer Sydney Carton, whose acts of self-sacrifice bring the plot to its climax. Dickens drew on Thomas Carlyle's history of the Revolution, and he contrasted the injustice of the old regime with the violence of the revolutionary Terror. It is one of the best-selling novels in the English language.
Before and after
- 20 November 1858Birth of Selma Lagerlöf
- 22 December 1858Birth of Giacomo Puccini
- 1859Publication of Ja, vi elsker dette landet
- 1859Construction of Neues Museum
- 1859Publication of A Tale of Two Cities
- 1859John Tyndall measures how gases trap heat
- 27 January 1859Birth of Wilhelm II
- 19 February 1859Birth of Svante August Arrhenius
- 8 April 1859Birth of Edmund Husserl
More in Art, literature & culture
- 1792Publication of La Marseillaise
- 1863Origins of Baháʼí Faith
- 26 November 1865Publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- 1871The Internationale
- from 1886 to 1905Rise of Post-impressionism
- from 6 April 1896 to 15 April 18961896 Summer Olympics
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.