Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. There are celebrations around the Globe, and what better way to celebrate than with reading or re-reading of A Tale of Two Cities. This 1859 novel is about the French Revolution which was also known as “The Terror.” Over 50,000 “innocents” died, many by the guillotine.
The excellent writer, Claire Tomalin, made headlines this week by stating that children today do not have the attention span for Dickens because of the length of his novels. She has a recent biography of Dickens, which is sure to be very good, but if she thinks teenagers only read short books – Is she familiar with the Harry Potter or Twilight series? All of the books must be read to finish the story.
Well, this is one of his shorter works, so that should not be a factor. It has one of the most famous first lines in literature.
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
The book goes on to top this beginning, so enjoy!
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