A Tale of Two Cities [Tantor]

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

This novel provides a highly charged examination of human suffering and human sacrifice, private experience and public history, during the French Revolution.

A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most exciting novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, it tells the story of a family threatened by the terrible events of the past. Doctor Manette was wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for 18 years without trial by the aristocratic authorities. Finally released, he is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, who despite her French ancestry has been brought up in London. Lucie falls in love with Charles Darnay, another expatriate, who has abandoned wealth and a title in France because of his political convictions. When revolution breaks out in Paris, Darnay returns to the city to help an old family servant, but there he is arrested because of the crimes committed by his relations. His wife, Lucie, their young daughter, and her aged father follow him across the channel, thus putting all their lives in danger.

Public Domain (P)2008 Tantor

Critic reviews

Charles Dickens's classic of the French Revolution is expertly dramatized by Simon Vance. It's also a grand romance. Charles Darnay, the French émigré who relinquishes his title in disgust at the poverty wrought upon the peasants by the titled class, and Sydney Carton, the world-weary drunken London barrister, both love Lucie, the daughter of the unjustly imprisoned Dr. Alexandre Manette. Vance will have listeners weeping as Carton greets Madame Guillotine with some of the most famous lines in literature. Carton's depression and ultimate redemption are crystal clear; Madame Defarge, with her clicking knitting needles, takes on appropriate menace; and Jarvis Lorry, the reliable "man of business," loves Lucie as if she were his daughter." (AudioFile magazine)

classic and fabulous

this book is a classic take of sadness and upheaval. The story of the innocence lost during a revolution.

Great, but a little different

Unlike many of Dickens' books, A Tale of Two Cities does not focus as much on character development (with perhaps one exception) as it does on the overall plot. The characters are remarkable, but the focus of the story deals more with their context within the French Revolution. This makes it a little less enjoyable as an audio book.

Excellent

I agree with the other reviewers that the beginning is slow and hard to keep attention. However, it is vastly worth it.

In the beginning, Dickens creates these two seeming very different stories and character groups so far away. Then, the light the rest of the book they intertwinings become increasingly more illuminated. So brilliant. I wished I wouldn’t have payed closer attention to the beginning details! I will definitely listen again to this story for that very purpose.

The ending is so exquisite. Please listen, you will not be disappointed!!

Classic Reign of Terror Historical Fiction

While this takes about a third to really get going, this is an excellent example of historical fiction. "A Tale of Two Cities" takes place leading up to and during the French Revolution, set in London and Paris and focusing on a French and English family as they struggle to survive persecution and imprisonment during the Reign of Terror.

The scenes that are about personal family and social relations were not my favorite. I kind of wanted to just skip those parts, and I wonder if I would have bore the dialogue portions differently if I had read this in print instead of listening to an audiobook version. I do think the narration by Simon Vance was done well, except for his ridiculous voices for women, but there weren’t a lot of female characters, so that didn’t ruin the experience.

My favorite sections were when the tensions of the city boiled over into action and rebellion. The descriptions of mob mentality but also the inevitability of people rising up against oppression are done so well. I can definitely see people reading this and then Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" in a course that studies the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars from a literary perspective.

This isn't one of my favorite classics, but I am really glad I read this. I respect its importance to English literature, and probably to how the Reign of Terror and French Revolution has been popularized and remembered for generations. I recommend this to anyone who is interested in Charles Dickens’ body of work, this time in history, and especially in literary depictions of that history.

This! Is why Dickens’ novels are classics.

Classic historical fiction in that you can live through historical events vicariously through the eyes of fictionalized characters who are fleshed out by a master. The narrator is one of my favorites. His performance helps to easily distinguish between the characters. Audible is the only way to read the classics. I spend many pleasant hours hiking while reading a classic.

Truly One of the Greats

I did not know what to expect. I have not read much of Dickens and figured I should culture myself. It is now one of my favorite books of all time. I literally felt my soul be moved, especially at the end, and it gives great insight into the French revolution. Highly recommend.

I love this book

I highly recommend this book. The narration was beautifully done and I always enjoy the was Charles paints a picture of his characters in words.

Bittersweet Tale

If you could sum up A Tale of Two Cities in three words, what would they be?

Grim historical time. I'm past the half-century mark and read this in high school...didn't remember it at all except that I didn't do so well on my book report! I am living in Paris for a few years so I have been trying to listen to some European classics. I just didn't realize/appreciate the gravity of the French Revolution until I came to live here. As an American, I just don't have much appreciation for world history...I'm getting some! The opening lines of this novel are iconic...they are familiar even to me...if I was a contestant on Jeopardy I would not have put Dicken's poetry with this tale...I feel so much better prepared now for any future contests. The narration is outstanding. I tend to favor male narrators as I find very few women's voices do justice to male roles, and this novel is dominated by male characters. As with the few books I have read placed in this time period, it is a tale full of extreme sadness...at times...hopelessness. To my limited view, it captures the terror of the French revolution all too well. If time travel becomes possible at some point, avoid Paris during the French revolution because no one was safe from Madame Guillotine.Dickens is able to take a sad storyline and somewhat give us a happy ending. If you are a fan of Dickens, this is definitely a story you will want to hear as he takes this time in history and creates a timeless tale.

The Master Weaver

The genius of Charles Dickens is, in my opinion, most poignantly evident in the mastery with which he weaves ornate tapestries of plotlines like colored thread and the majestic soul of the embroidered product. When reading Dickens, I feel as though I am watching the master draw forth here a thread of one color and there one of quite another that often seems discordant or at least out of place. However, as the inevitability and profound beauty of first the pattern, then the picture, and finally the panorama dawns, one cannot but help rejoicing in the author’s brilliant and steady hands.

As is true of all great artists, authors, and composers, it is not merely the technical prowess that is honored by posterity, for many may possess it, but rather the soul which it so faithfully preserves. The abilities of Dickens as a writer need not be mentioned, for they are plain enough. While it is easy to lose oneself in the delicate balance and aesthetic perfection of Dickens’ stories, the sooner one moves on from this revery and instead reflects upon the silent impact made in their own heart, the sooner they will begin knowing something about Charles Dickens.

This impact is unabashedly and undeniably of a spiritual, and primarily of a Christian nature. Convinced secular minds can certainly appreciate the literary talent but, by their very commitment to secularity, will remain unequal to the task of penetrating the most moving innermost themes in this and other novels by Dickens. Either these themes are vacuous drivel or eternal truths. This is no forum for philosophical debate but this is the crossroads all readers must navigate when reading authors of spiritual conviction.

This book, or shall I say, Charles Dickens himself is worthy of your time and attention. The wisdom he imparts, especially through the character of Sydney Carton, will forever change an open heart.

If you haven't read it since high school...

It's been decades since I read this book, and honestly, it had become conflated in my memory with all the other books, movies and biographies I have read from the time of the French Revolution. Literary types will tell you this is not 'Dicken's best work'-- but it's darn good... and though completely predictable it's worth revisiting if you haven't read it as an adult.