Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, "A Tale of Two Cities" is Dickens' masterful portrait of Paris and London. The shadow of the guillotine's blade hangs over two reputable men, one French, one English, as they compete for the love of Lucie Manette...Based on the world-famous "Nonesuch Press" edition of 1937, the text is taken from the 1867 "Chapman and Hall" edition, which became known as the "Charles Dickens" edition, and was the last edition to be corrected by the author himself. "The Nonesuch" edition contains illustrations selected by Dickens himself, by artists including Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'), George Cruikshank, John Leech, Robert Seymour and George Cattermole.The new "Nonesuch Dickens" reproduces the original elegance of these beautiful editions. Books are printed on natural cream shade high quality stock, are quarter bound in bonded leather with cloth sides, include a ribbon marker and feature special printed endpapers. Each book is wrapped in a protective, clear acetate jacket.
One of the grand masters of Victorian literature, Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation,but also the horror of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and "slave" factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years' formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney's clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.
