A Tale of Two Cities

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Martin Jarvis

Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Exclusively from Audible

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'; so the recording begins and ends with some of Dickens' best-known words, and between those lines is every Briton's view of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

Set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution, the audiobook tells the story of a French doctor who is imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastille in Paris. Upon his release, he moves to London with his daughter, Lucie, whom he had never met. She marries but there is conflict between her husband and the people who decades earlier caused her father's imprisonment.

Set against the backdrop of the conditions that led up to the French Revolution, it depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralised by the French aristocracy and the brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries during the Reign of Terror, towards the former aristocrats.

Dickens was one of eight children from a very poor family, with his father eventually being sent to debtor's prison. Dickens began work at the age of 12 to help clear the family debt. It was this troublesome childhood that provided him with much of the material for his novels and lent him a sympathetic voice for the poor.

Narrator Biography

Martin Jarvis is one of Britain's most admired actors. His audiobook output is legendary. He is described in Vanity Fair as 'the Olivier of audiobooks' and 'genius of the Spoken Word' in the LA Times. Award-winning recordings range from titles by Charles Dickens, P.G. Wodehouse and Michael Frayn to thrillers by Jeffrey Archer, Wilbur Smith, Ian Fleming and Dick Francis.

He has starred in many acclaimed West End and National Theatre productions and received the Theatre World Award as Jeeves on Broadway. Numerous UK television appearances encompass Law & Order, Doctor Who, Endeavour, Inspector Morse and The Forsyte Saga. In America: Murder She Wrote, Numb3rs, Cosmos and Walker, Texas Ranger. Films include Titanic, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Wreck-It Ralph. Videogames: Alfred in Batman, Finn McMissile in Cars. Martin was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Very well portrayed

An excellent version of this classic tale. The voice is extremely clear and effectively portrays the numerous characters in the book - to the point that, even if you can't remember their names, you recognise them by the reader's tone.

Highly recommended

Loved this book on audio -- one of my favorite audio book experiences, a very pleasant surprise. Took me an hour or two of listening to become completely hooked, but after that I literally couldn't put it down -- stayed up till all hours to hear the final passages. The only audio book that ever made me cry. Just lovely.

Mimi

It was an excellent audio of the book. Third time to hear it and enjoy it more each time I hear it.

A True Classic Marvelously Read

This is a marvelous audiobook version of a true classic novel. I was immediately gripped by it from the opening chapters (a vivid set piece depicting a coach traveling through a stormy British night over bad roads in danger from highwaymen) until the very end. It made me chuckle (especially in the scenes involving Jerry Cruncher, the dubious "tradesman" who can't abide his wife's "floppin'" (praying) against him), moved me to tears (especially in some scenes involving Dr. Manette or Sidney Carton), frightened me (especially in the scenes with the implacable Madame Defarge and her knitting needles), appalled me (especially in the scenes involving Saint Guillotine), and impressed me (especially when Dickens gets on one of his patented rolls describing something like when the wine barrel breaks outside the Parisian wine shop and the locals come crowding around on their hands and knees to drink up the wine from between the sharp cobblestones, using their hands and handkerchiefs and pushing mud from the gutters up to form wine dams and generally becoming inebriated and red-dyed, prefiguring the bloodshed to come???). Never a dull moment. Informed with Dickens' hatred of social injustice and systemic brutality and pitiless cruelty and with his love of love in any form.

And Martin Jarvis reads like a man possessed, giving each of the main characters their own distinct voice, becoming excited or quiet appropriately, bringing out all the nuances of Dickens' text, making the listening experience so vivid and cinematic in the mind.

I would give this more than five stars (but there is a place in the first part and a place in the second where strange electric noises pop up for several seconds).

Gorgeous

Wonderful narration. I haven't heard many audio books, but it's hard to imagine this one being done any better. Rich characters and scenes, precisely drawn by Dickens.

I love the French Revolution...go Dickens

This is a classic. Good character and plot development.

Well done and easy to listen to

The reader did an excellent job of using different voices as he was reading to help you follow the story. It's a classic story with lots of interesting twists and turns and a surprise ending!

great classic story, good performance

I couldn't stop listening, the story is great, it even had some laugh out loud moments, not near the end mind you, but still a classic

Great story, engaging performance

This was the first book I’d ever listened to on audio, and it was so well done! The story is, of course, classic and so well put together. The performance kept me engaged and wanting to listen more. This was a great introduction to the world of audiobooks!

Great Book, Fantastic Narration

This book is a little richer and less formulaic that some Dickens novels (and I like most Dickens novels.) There are some great themes running through it. You might even shed a tear at the beautiful ending.
The narration on this book is one of the best I have ever heard. The voices are so well created and differentiated that the narrator could have never read "said ___" etc and I would have known exactly which of the 5-6 characters in a scene was talking.
Highly Recommended!