“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The two cities are London and Paris. The background is the French Revolution, descriptions of which Dickens obtained from his friend Thomas Carlyle. A Tale of Two Cities is a powerful, compelling portrait of the results of terror and treason, love and supreme sacrifice. The biggest-selling book of all time continues to captivate readers around the world. Dickens’ unforgettable characters—the ever-knitting Madame Defarge, the lovely Lucie Manette, her broken father, the honorable Charles Darnay, and the sometimes scurrilous Sydney Carton—burst from the pages, full of life and passion. The book provides a highly-charged examination of human suffering and human sacrifice, private experience and public history, during the French Revolution. - from Amzon