Novel by Charles Dickens, published both serially and in book
form in 1859. The story is set in the late 18th century against the
background of the French Revolution. Although Dickens borrowed from
Thomas Carlyle's history, The French Revolution, for his sprawling tale
of London and revolutionary Paris, the novel offers more drama than
accuracy. The scenes of large-scale mob violence are especially vivid,
if superficial in historical understanding. The complex plot involves
Sydney Carton's sacrifice of his own life on behalf of his friends
Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette. While political events drive the
story, Dickens takes a decidedly antipolitical tone, lambasting both
aristocratic tyranny and revolutionary excess--the latter memorably
caricatured in Madame Defarge, who knits beside the guillotine. The book
is perhaps best known for its opening lines, "It was the best of
times, it was the worst of times," and for Carton's last speech, in
which he says of his replacing Darnay in a prison cell, "It is a
far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far
better rest that I go to, than I have ever known." -- The
Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature