a tale of two cities is charles dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the french revolution. the most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. though the least typical of the author’s novels, a tale of two cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.