Tale of Two Cities is a novel written by Charles Dickens, and first published as a serial in 'All the Year Round' between April the 30th and November the 26th 1859 and concurrently in eight monthly parts. The plot moves between London and Paris during the French Revolution, and revolves around Sydney Carton, a dissipated barrister who gives his life so that Charles Darnay, his rival for the affections of Lucie Manette, may live. Research Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens was a 19th century English novelist whose powerful imagery brought to public attention the terrible conditions endured by the poor. He was born in 1812 at Landport, Portsmouth and died in 1870.
His father, John Dickens, was then in the employment of the Navy Pay Department, but subsequently became a newspaper reporter in London. Young Charles Dickens received a somewhat scanty education, was for a time a mere drudge in a blacking warehouse, and subsequently a clerk in an attorney's office. Having perfected himself in shorthand, however, he became a newspapercritic and reporter, was engaged on the Mirror of Parliament and the True Sun, and in 1835 on the Morning Chronicle. For some time previously he had been contributing humorous pieces to the Monthly Magazine; but at length, in 1835, appeared in the Morning Chronicle the first of that series of Sketches by Boz which brought Charles Dickens into fame. It was followed in quick succession by a pamphlet entitled Sunday under Three Heads, by Timothy Spark publsihed in 1836; the Tuggs of Barnsgate published in 1836; The Village Coquette, a comic opera published in 1836; and a farce called the Strange Gentleman published in 1836.
In the same year Chapman and Hall engaged the new writer to prepare the letterpress for a series of comic sketches on sporting subjects by Seymour, an artist who had already achieved fame, and suggested as a subject the adventures of an eccentric club. Seymourcommitted suicide soon after, and H K Browne joined Charles Dickens as illustrator, the result being the immortal Pickwick Papers.
The great characteristics of Charles Dickens' genius were now fully apparent, and his fame rose at once to the highest point it was possible for a writer of fiction to reach. A new class of characters, eccentric indeed, but vital representations of the humours and oddities of life, such as Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller and his father, Mr. Winkle, and others, were made familiar to the public. Under the name of the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club this work was published in two volumes in 1837.
In the same year Charles Dickens was engaged as editor of Bentley's Magazine, to which he contributed Oliver Twist, a work which opened up that vein of philanthropic pathos and indignant satire of institutions which became a distinguishing feature of his works. Before the completion of Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby was begun, being issued complete in 1839. As the special object of Oliver Twist was to expose the conduct of workhouses, that of Nicholas Nickleby was to denounce the management of cheap boarding-schools.
Master Humphrey's Clock, issued in weekly numbers, contained among other matter two other leading tales, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge, the latter a historical tale, going back to the times of the Gordon riots. It was published complete in 1840-41. In 1841 Dickens visited America, and on his return he wrote American Notes for General Circulation published in 1842.
His next novel, Martin Chuzzlewit published in 1844, dwelt again on his American experiences. This work also added a number of typical figures - Mr. Pecksniff, Mark Tapley, Sarah Gamp, and others - to English literature. The series of Christmas Tales, in which a new element of his genius, the power of handling the wierd machinery of ghostly legend in subordination to his own peculiar humour, excited a new sensation of wonder and delight. These enumerated consecutively were: A Christmas Carol published in 1843, The Chimes published in 1844, The Cricket on the Hearth published in 1845), The Battle of Life published in 1846, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain published in 1847. The extraordinary popularity of these tales created for a time a new department in literature, that of the Sensational tale for the Christmas season.
In 1845 Charles Dickens went to Italy, and on his return the Daily News, started on the 1st of January, 1846, was intrusted to his editorial management; but, despite his early training, this was an occupation uncongenial to his mind, and in a few months the experiment was abandoned. His Pictures from Italy were published the same year. Next followed his novel of Dombey and Son published in 1848), and David Copperfield, a work which has a strong autobiographical element in it published in 1849-50.
In 1850 Charles Dickens became editor of the weekly serial Household Words, in which various original contributions from his own pen appeared. In 1853 his Bleak House came out. A Child's History of England, commenced in Household Words, was published in 1852-64. Hard Times appeared in Household Words, and was published in 1854. Little Dorrit, commenced in 1856, dealt with imprisonment for debt, the contrasts of character developed by wealth and poverty, and executive imbecility, idealized in the Circumlocution Office. In 1859, in consequence of a disagreement with his publishers, All the Year Round superseded Household Words; and in the first number of this periodical, 28th May, was begun A Tale of Two Cities. Great Expectations followed in the same paper, on the 1st of December, 1860. Both were soon. republished, and are generally considered as the poorest of Charles Dickens' works.
In All the Year Round also appeared a series of disconnected sketches, called the Uncommercial Traveller, published in 1868. Our Mutual Friend, completed in 1865, and published in the usual monthly numbers, with illustrations by Marcus Stone, was the last great serial work which Charles Dickens lived to finish. It contained some studies of characters of a breadth and depth unusual with Charles Dickens, and is distinguished among his works by its elaborate plot. The first number of his last work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was issued on the 1st of April, 1870, and only three numbers had appeared when he died somewhat suddenly, at his residence, Gad's Hill Place, near Rochester, on the 9th of June. He had considerably overtaxed his strength during his later years, more especially by his successive series of public readings from bis own works, one series being delivered in America in 1867-68. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Charles Dickens' work as a novelist is firmly based upon a wide and keen observation of men. It is true that most of his characters suffer from being created to exhibit little more than one trait or quality alone, and thus receive an air of grotesqueness and exaggeration which approaches caricature. But the single trait or quality which they embody is so truly conceived, and exhibited with such vitality and humour, as to place Charles Dickens, in spite of all that is grotesque and overstrained in his work, amongst the great artists. Research Charles Dickens
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