A Tale of Two Cities
Classic Fiction · No. 10 — The best of times, the worst of times, and one far better thing.
- Classic Fiction
- 39 min
- Ages 15–99
- 6 chapters
About this audiobook
Dr. Manette, buried alive for eighteen years in the Bastille, is 'recalled to life' and restored by his daughter Lucie. Around her gather two men with one face: Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who renounced his cruel family's name, and Sydney Carton, a brilliant, wasted London lawyer who knows he has thrown his life away and loves Lucie without hope. When the Revolution turns Paris into a storm of long-remembered wrongs, Darnay is condemned by a letter his own father-in-law wrote in the Bastille — and Carton walks into the prison to trade places with him, keeping an old promise and finding, at the very end, the one far better thing he ever did.
Why it's worth a listen
Two cities, two men with one face, and a brilliant, wasted lawyer who has thrown his life away — until the Revolution's blade gives him one chance to matter. It is Dickens's grandest canvas, ending on the most famous act of love in all of fiction, carried entirely by Sydney Carton's calm. The season's finale asks its biggest question: can one act of love make up for a wasted life?
A question to keep
Can one act of love make up for a wasted life?
Chapters
- Recalled to Life
- The Golden Thread and the Shadow
- The Red Storm Rises
- Drawn to the Loadstone Rock
- A Far Better Rest
- A Question to Keep