It was the time of the French Revolution — a time of great change and great danger. It was a time when injustice was met by a lust for vengeance, and rarely was a distinction made between the innocent and the guilty. Against this tumultuous historical backdrop, Dickens' great story of unsurpassed adventure and courage unfolds. Unjustly imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastille, Dr. Alexandre Manette is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, and safely transported from France to England. It would seem that they could take up the threads of their lives in peace. As fate would have it though, the pair are summoned to the Old Bailey to testify against a young Frenchman — Charles Darnay — falsely accused of treason. Strangely enough, Darnay bears an uncanny resemblance to another man in the courtroom, the dissolute lawyer's clerk Sydney Carton. It is a coincidence that saves Darnay from certain doom more than once. Brilliantly plotted, the novel is rich in drama, romance, and heroics that culminate in a daring prison escape in the shadow of the guillotine. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, those days in which your English Literature professor ordered you to read “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. You were immediately confounded by the perplexity of the story and confused by the language of the times. In your despair, you struggled, endeavored and persevered to reach the conclusion of the classic novel. Having satisfactorily completed the requirements of that difficult semester, you vowed to never again read classic English literature. As the years accumulated, you garnered wisdom and spirituality as you aged and you gathered far greater literary acumen. Your mind was transformed and you began to yearn for the great stories that could only be told by the true masters. Anon, you found yourself immersed in the incredible classic writings of Charles Dickens. For no one could so completely transport you to the mean filthy streets of Oliver Twist’s London or the horror and dread of The Reign of Terror in that unfortunate tale of London and Paris in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three. No other writer could place you so deeply into the mind of a tyrannical boss such as Ebenezer Scrooge or imbue the viciousness of a violent revolutionary the likes of Madame Defarge. Contemporary writers only wish they had the amazing ability to create magnificent unlikely heroes and fantastic characters whose flame of eternal hope burned against an all consuming darkness.

A Tale of Two Cities

Literature & Fiction

DICKENS., CHARLES

Contemporary

North Books

POIGNANT, WRY, CHILLING, CHALLENGING, amusing, thought-provoking and always intriguing, these accomplished tales from the pens of great writers are object-lessons in the art of creating a literary masterpiece on a small canvas. From the straightforwardly anecdotal to the more analytical of human behaviour, all are guaranteed to capture the imagination, stir the emotions, linger in the memory and whet the reader's appetite for more. In this book, Wordsworth Editions presents the modern reader with a rich variety of short stories by a host of towering literary figures ranging from Arnold Bennett to Virginia Woolf. This disparate and distinguished company of writers has rarely - if ever - met within the pages of one volume: the result is a positive feast.

Classic Short Stories

VARIOUS

Short Stories & Anthologies

An orphan, sent from India to England to live with her unpleasant uncle, discovers an abandoned and unusual garden on the north country estate

The Secret Garden

Children's Books

BURNETT, FRANCES HODGSON

Classics

Book annotation not available for this title.Title: Selected Stories of Nathaniel HawthorneAuthor: Hawthorne, NathanielPublisher: North BooksPublication Date: 1996/09/01Number of Pages: Binding Type: HARDCOVERLibrary of Congress: 

Selected Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne,Nathaniel

Persuasion

Austen., Jane

After the death of his parents, Jim is sent to live with his grandparents on the Nebraska plains. By chance on that same train is a bright-eyed girl, Antonia, who will become his neighbor and lifelong friend. Her family has emigrated from Bohemia to start a new life farming but soon lose their money and must work hard just to survive. Through it all, Antonia retains her natural pride and free spirit.

My Antonia

Cather., Willa

A sensitive and moving portrait of life and manners in an English country village during the 1830s, "Cranford" recounts the events and activities in the lives of a group of spinsters and widows who struggle in genteel poverty to maintain their standards of propriety, decency, and kindness.

Cranford

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn

Alice in Wonderland

CARROLL, LEWIS

Emma

Sense & Sensibility

Literary

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