Tale Of Two Cities Lecture Notes (In Progress - video stopped working)

• Tale of Two Cities - very personal
• Frozen Deep (1857) - co-written w/ Collins
• In love w/ Ellen Turnam(sp?) - was part of family of actors
• Lucie from Tale based off her
• based most characters off of people from his real life and often made thinly veiled references in their names (Ellen played a character named Lucy)
• Public readings for profit
• established new relationship with his readers
• toured as a reader
• 1858 separated from his wife Catherine
• 1859 chapters 1-3 published
• Takes place in London and Paris
• Dickens moved their at ten because of his fathers job
• "extensive and peculiar knowledge of the city"
• "wretchedness and darkness but also great fascination"
• Saw London as a labyrinth
• extreme riches - extreme poverty
• Thought Paris was the most extraordinary place he'd ever seen
• The worlds of London and Paris (to Dickens) are very similar as stated in his opening to Tale
• It was the best of times it was the worst of times...
• France haunted by the French Revolution (1789 - 23 yrs before birth)
• had a horror of riot and mob rule
• Horrors of outbreak of riots and revolution written about in Tale