A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Dickens's famous opening sentence introduces the universal approach of the book, the French Revolution, and the drama depicted
A Tale of Two Cities sign of the gold-beater's craft) now resides at the Charles Dickens Museum but you could have seen a modern replica sticking out of the wall near the Pillars of Hercules pub at the western end of Manette Street (formerly Rose Street), until this building was demolished in 2017. In United States politics, at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, the keynote speaker Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York delivered a scathing criticism of then-President Ronald Reagan's comparison of the United States to a "shining city on a hill" with an allusion to Dickens' novel, saying: "Mr. President, you ought to know