Novel: A Tale Of Two Cities Book the First: Recalled to Life Chapter 1: The Period Author: Charles Dickens Narrator: Frank Muller Source: Jiuliqiangwei
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity;it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair;we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.In short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events, most notably Charles Darnay, a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Sydney Carton, a dissipated British barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of his unrequited love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette.
Charles Dickson was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era. His work has been praised for its mastery of prose and unique personalities by writers such as George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton, though others, such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf, criticised him for sentimentality and implausibility.
