A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club)

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHARLES DICKENS was born at Portsmouth on 7 February 1812, the second of eight children. Dickens’s childhood experiences were similar to those depicted in
David Copperfield
. His father, who was a government clerk, was imprisoned for debt and Dickens was briefly sent to work in a blacking warehouse at the age of twelve. He received little formal education, but taught himself shorthand and became a reporter of parliamentary debates for the
Morning Chronicle
. He began to publish sketches in various periodicals, which were subsequently republished as
Sketches by Boz. The Pickwick Papers
was published in 1836-7 and after a slow start became a publishing phenomenon and Dickens’s characters the centre of a popular cult. Part of the secret of his success was the method of cheap serial publication which Dickens used for all his novels. He began
Oliver Twist
in 1837, followed by
Nicholas Nickleby
(1838-9) and
The Old Curiosity Shop
(1840-41). After finishing
Barnaby Rudge
(1841) Dickens set off for America; he went full of enthusiasm for the young republic but, in spite of a triumphant reception, he returned disillusioned. His experiences are recorded in
American Notes
(1842).
Martin Chuzzlewit
(1843-4) did not repeat its predecessors’ success, but this was quickly redressed by the huge popularity of the
Christmas Books
, of which the first,
A Christmas Carol
, appeared in 1843. During 1844-6 Dickens travelled abroad and he began
Dombey and Son
(1846-8) while in Switzerland. This and
David Copperfield
(1849-50) were more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early novels. In later works, such as
Bleak House
(1852-3) and
Little Dorrit
(1855-7), Dickens’s social criticism became more radical and his comedy more savage. In 1850 Dickens started the weekly periodical
Household Words
, succeeded in 1859 by
All the Year Round
; in these he published
Hard Times
(1854),
A Tale of Two Cities
(1859), and
Great Expectations
(1860-61). Dickens’s health was failing during the 1860s and the physical strain of the public readings which he began in 1858 hastened his decline, although
Our Mutual Friend
(1864-5) retained some of his best comedy. His last novel,
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
, was never completed and he died on 9 June 1870. Public grief at his death was considerable and he was buried in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.

 

KRISTIE ALLEN holds a PhD from Rutgers University and has taught Romantic and Victorian literature at Rutgers University and Macalester College. In addition to writing on Charles Dickens, she has published articles on George Eliot's
The Mill on the Floss
and on Victorian melodramas.

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A TALE OF TWO CITIES
First published in Great Britain by Chapman and Hall 1859
First published in the United States of America by T. B. Peterson & Brothers 1859
Originally published in serial form in
All the Year Round
1859

 

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
First published in Great Britain by Chapman and Hall 1861
First published in the United States of America by T. B. Peterson & Brothers 1861
Originally published in serial form in
All the Year Round
1860-1861

 

This two-book edition published in Penguin Books 2010

 Penguin Enriched eBook Features copyright © Kristie Allen, 2008, 2010
All rights reserved

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-49951-1

 

 

 

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This edition of
A Tale of Two Cities
uses the text as it appeared in its first serial publication in Dickens’s periodical
All the Year Round
in 1859. Only a few emendations have been made.

The present edition has been reprinted from
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens (Penguin Classics, 2003), with an introduction by David Trotter and edited and with notes by Charlotte Mitchell.

The appendix prints the ending of the novel as Dickens originally conceived it.

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 direct to Heaven, we were all going direct 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.