A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens, 1859.
Before you read: Set in the French Revolution, with violence. Better for teens.
London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. A doctor freed after eighteen years in the Bastille, his daughter, the French nobleman she marries, and a careless English lawyer are all pulled toward the guillotine. Its opening and closing lines are some of the most famous in English.
Public-domain text. First published in 1859; Charles Dickens died in 1870, so this text is in the public domain in the US, Canada, the EU and India. Summary and notes written by ViralScopeHub.