A Tale of Two Cities: A Final Wrap-Up

Wherein The Dickens Chronological Reading Club wraps up our final weeks (Weeks 7 & 8) with A Tale of Two Cities, our 21st read; with a chapter summary, discussion wrap-up, and a final thematic wrap-up, followed by a look-ahead to our break between reads.

by the members of the #DickensClub, edited/compiled by Rach

Friends, for some of us, this novel is truly “a far, far better thing” than nearly anything ever written, and it breaks our hearts even after reading it two dozen times. Others might have preferred Barnaby Rudge and its characterization and execution. What are your thoughts on A Tale‘s place in the Dickens canon?

If you have time for nothing else today, I’d highly recommend reading the final thematic wrap-up, where I’ve tried to pull together the themes we’ve discussed–many carried over, in new ways, from previous novels; others new.

Thank you so much for joining us on this journey, and for the wealth of comments and insights and the sharing of reading experiences!

A few quick links:

1. General Mems
2. A Tale of Two Cities, “Book the Third” Chs 6-15: A Summary
3. Discussion Wrap-Up (Weeks 7-8)
4. A Tale of Two Cities: A Final Thematic Wrap-Up
5. A Look-Ahead to Our Break Between Reads (27 Feb to 11 March, 2024)

General Mems

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for our upcoming chat on A Tale of Two Cities on Saturday, 2 March, 2024. 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern/7pm GMT (London). Rach will be emailing a Zoom link prior to the meeting; let her know if you’d like to be added to the email list!

If you’re counting, today is Day 784 (and week 113) in our #DickensClub! Today we’re finishing A Tale of Two Cities, our twenty-first read as a group. Please feel free to comment below this post for any final thoughts, or use the hashtag #DickensClub if you’re commenting on twitter/X.

No matter where you’re at in the reading process, a huge “thank you” for reading along with us. Heartfelt thanks to our dear Dickens Fellowship, The Dickens Society, and the Charles Dickens Letters Project for retweets, and to all those liking, sharing, and encouraging our Club, including Gina Dalfonzo, Dr. Christian Lehmann and Dr. Pete Orford. Huge “thank you” also to The Circumlocution Office (on twitter also!) for providing such a marvelous online resource for us.

And for any more recent members or for those who might be interested in joining: the revised two-and-a-half year reading schedule can be found here. If you’ve been reading along with us but aren’t yet on the Member List, we would love to add you! Please feel free to message Rach here on the site, or on twitter. And for any more recent members or for those who might be interested in joining: the revised two-and-a-half year reading schedule can be found here. If you’ve been reading along with us but aren’t yet on the Member List, we would love to add you! Please feel free to message Rach here on the site, or on twitter.

For Rach & Boze’s Introduction to A Tale of Two Cities, please click here. For Chris’s wonderful supplemental materials to ATTC, please click here.

A Tale of Two Cities, “Book the Third” Chs 6-15: A Summary

(Illustrated by Phiz. Images below are from the Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery.)

At the close of our previous chapter, we found that Darnay had finally been summoned for trial on the following day. But a mysterious figure, welcomed into France by Mr Lorry, has also appeared on the scene, and we will soon find out the identity of this friend.

Meanwhile…

“Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay…”

So begins Darnay’s second trial, which had been long prepared for with assiduous care by Darnay and Dr Manette. With two witnesses, Gabelle and Manette, Darnay proved to the satisfaction of the jury that he was not an “emigrant…within the sense and spirit of the law,” but had “voluntarily relinquished a title that was distasteful to him…to live by his own industry in England, rather than on the industry of the overladen people of France.” It is, above all, the testimony of the popular Dr Manette, so long suffering by the abuses of the old regime, that sets Darnay at liberty.

But the blissful reunion between Lucie and her husband proves to be short-lived. There is a knock at the door, and Darnay is once again to be taken into custody. Darnay had been denounced by Citizen and Citizeness Defarge—and one other, whom the arresting citizens will refuse to name even to the respected Dr Manette. Manette is shocked that this surprise arrest could have happened without his knowledge.

Unconscious of what had just happened, Miss Pross is out in the streets, shopping, accompanied by Mr Cruncher. She runs into—of all people—her long-estranged brother, Solomon Pross, whom she is shocked to see here in Paris. Her brother seems fearful to acknowledge the relation, and tries to shut her up, as if his safety is involved. Jerry Cruncher recognizes the man, but under a different name, which he is unable to recall. It is at this point that another voice breaks in to inform Jerry of the name, “Barsad.” The voice that had spoken the name is Sydney Carton, the mysterious figure who had just arrived in France in time for Darnay’s trial.

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr Lorry’s, to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or unless I could be useful; I present myself here, to beg a little talk with your brother…”

Sydney reveals that Barsad is a “Sheep of the Prisons”—a spy. (Sydney had been doing his own spying on Barsad that day, and deduced as much.) This knowledge gives Sydney a hold over Barsad, whose life would be forfeit if this became known. Barsad, threatened, agrees to come with Sydney to Tellson’s Bank. There, in the presence of Mr Lorry, Sydney shows Barsad his “hand” at the game of cards he proposes: that Barsad is not only a spy and “secret informer” and turnkey, but had been in the employ formerly of the English government, and associate of another Sheep of the Prisons, Roger Cly. When Barsad can at least refute the last claim, as Barsad says that Cly has been dead and buried for some years, Jerry, silent all this while, finally starts up indignantly, accusing Barsad of burying paving stones rather than a corpse in the coffin of Roger Cly. All are shocked to hear Jerry’s testimony, and Sydney considers that to be a very good card indeed in his favor—a certain “guillotine card.” Barsad finally agrees to aid Sydney in whatever he proposes doing, so long as it doesn’t involve too much personal danger for himself—Barsad—otherwise he will take his chances. But for the arrangement that Sydney proposes, Sydney takes Barsad aside so as to speak privately on a matter having to do with the fact that Barsad is a turnkey at the Conciergerie, and can pass in and out at will.

Meanwhile, Mr Lorry berates Jerry for having an unlawful profession—that of grave-robbing—on the side. Jerry promises that if he, Lorry, will consider taking Jerry’s son on as a messenger, and not mention all of this, Jerry will turn over a new leaf and amend his ways. Lorry relents. When Sydney and Barsad emerge from their private conference, Barsad looks dumbstruck, and is silent.

Chapter Nine in this final Book is, perhaps, the heart of the novel. When Lorry and Sydney Carton are alone, Sydney only states that Barsad could agree to giving him access to Darnay before the trial, and Lorry finally breaks down under the knowledge that that will not save him. In a poignant conversation, Sydney shows concern for his friend’s emotion, and that “I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not respect your sorrow more, if you were my father. You are free from that misfortune, however.” They discuss care for Lucie, and secrecy about Syndey’s presence in Paris and this whole arrangement. Lorry notices that something is heavy on Sydney’s mind; Sydney questions Lorry with poignant emphasis on the legacy that Lorry will leave behind him, as if to contrast it with his own.

 “If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, ‘I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude and respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!’ your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?”

Sydney, as if he were a far older man and nearer the end of life, asks Lorry whether his own childhood seems far off, or when “the days when you sat at your mother’s knee, seem days of very long ago?” Lorry answers in a way that comforts Syndey mysteriously.

“Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep…”

After respectfully and caringly seeing Lorry to his home, Sydney wanders the Paris streets. He speaks to the wood-sawyer like “a perfect Frenchman,” having been an old student there. He then visits a chemist’s shop nearby, and the chemist appears surprised and concerned by the order Sydney has written on a scrap of paper for him. “You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You know the consequences of mixing them?” He says that he knows it perfectly. Sydney then continues to wander, but it is no longer in a reckless manner, but in “the settled manner of a tired man, who had wandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his road and saw its end.”

“Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest competitors as a youth of great promise, he had followed his father to the grave. His mother had died, years before. These solemn words, which had been read at his father’s grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark streets, among the heavy shadows, with the moon and the clouds sailing on high above him. ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.’”

Sydney’s mind turns and turns again over these words, like an old “anchor” in the stormy sea, and the drifting, seemingly purposeless current of his life begins to find a way through.

At the summoning of Charles Darnay, and the calling of the denouncers, the third unnamed denunciation is said to be given by none other than Darnay’s father-in-law, Doctor Manette. Manette protests indignantly, but he is silenced, while a paper is read which had been kept hidden in Manette’s cell in the North Tower of the Bastille, and which Defarge had recovered in 1789.

The document is read aloud before the Tribunal.

Written in his own hand at stolen moments ten years into his captivity, and while he still was in his right mind, the document clearly and emotionally expresses the horror of what preceded Manette’s arrest in 1757. Manette had been summoned by the Evrémonde brothers to enter their carriage to attend to a patient who needed his care, in a crisis which was to be “seen and not spoken of.” At the Evrémonde’s chateau, Manette finds, to his horror, a young woman, a servant, who was pregnant with her master’s child, and whose mind has fallen into madness because of her plight, and the harm that the brothers have caused her family, shattered by the Evrémondes. Her own young brother, also a peasant, is there at the chateau, dying from a wound he received by the elder brother, after he had come to defend the honor of his sister. The elder brother seems only to care that he has tarnished his own honor by crossing swords with a peasant. The peasant boy speaks of his wrongs to the compassionate Doctor.

“We were so robbed by that man…taxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay…”

His story is one of the utmost cruelty and oppression, finalized by the brothers’s taking of his sister from her own husband to satisfy the Marquis’s lust. The boy also tells of another younger sister that he has managed to hide from the brothers. As the boy nears death, he sits up and with a pointing finger, curses the brothers with a deadly curse. Manette, horrified at all of this, had tried to write to a local official of what he had seen. Shortly after, Manette was abducted and taken to the Bastille, where he had been buried without trial or accusation, for ten years at the point of writing this document. Manette’s own curse, echoing that of the dying boy’s, concludes this harrowing narrative:

“And them and their descendants, to the last of their race, I Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, do this last night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony, denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce them to Heaven and to earth.”

There is no more hope for Charles after such denunciation.

“Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People. Back to the Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty hours!”

After a final parting between Lucie and her husband, Charles is taken away and Lucie faints. Dr Manette, whom Lucie and Charles had tried to comfort, is shocked and horrified. Sydney now emerges from where he had been watching the trial, takes Lucie up, and carries her to her lodgings. Before leaving her, he kisses Lucie’s forehead with a whispered phrase that Lucie’s child would remember for the rest of her life: “A life you love.”

Sydney encourages Dr Manette, for his own sanity if nothing else, and as a consolation to Lucie in the future that everything had been tried, to see if Manette has any influence still with some of the local officials. Manette valiantly goes off to make the attempt. (He later meets Sydney and Lorry in a state of mental confusion and agitation, asking for his old work. They are never sure whether Manette had managed to see anyone before this mental breakdown.) Sydney has an objective of his own in the meantime, and agrees to meet Mr Lorry within a couple of hours. Sydney, deliberately maintaining his English persona and pretending to have little knowledge of French, visits the Defarges’s wine shop, where he overhears the vengeful Madame Defarge’s own story of why she will not relent towards any of the family of Darnay/Evrémonde, though her husband is inclined to show some mercy to the Doctor: she herself is the younger sister that had been kept in hiding from the brothers, who had destroyed her whole family. She will not stop at Darnay, but will have his wife and child too.

“Tell Wind and Fire where to stop…but don’t tell me.”

When Sydney meets Lorry that night, he tells Lorry of the dreadful danger that is not limited to Charles, but which extends to the whole family, and that only Lorry can save them. After assuring himself that they all have their papers to pass out of the country and that they haven’t yet been recalled, Sydney gives Lorry his own papers for safe keeping too, and insists that two carriages be called on the following day—there must be no delay. Lorry must get the family out, and wait only for his own place to be filled in the carriage.

The next day, Charles is preparing himself for death, as one of the fifty-two that were do be executed that day. He writes a last, heartfelt letter to all of those he was to leave behind, to give them courage and comfort. “He never thought of Carton. His mind was so full of the others, that he never once thought of him.”

As the time diminishes, he hears unexpected footsteps in the stone passage outside. With the assistance of Barsad, Sydney Carton enters, to the infinite surprise of Darnay. Sydney then instructs Darnay, for his wife’s sake, to follow his instructions. He instructs Darnay to change his boots for his own, his coat for his own. “Let me take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair,” like his own. Darnay is fearful that Sydney contemplates helping him escape, which will only cost Sydney’s life in addition to his own. But Sydney dismisses this. Darnay becomes like a child in his hands, so energetic is Sydney in this mysterious endeavor. As a distraction, Sydney tells Darnay to take down a letter at his dictation:

“Write exactly as I speak…‘If you remember…the words that passed between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend this when you see it…’”

Carton is reaching in his pocket meanwhile, and Darnay thinks for a moment that he has a weapon in his hand, but he dismisses this too, and asks Darnay to continue writing.

“‘I am thankful that the time has come, when I can prove them. That I do so, is no subject for regret or grief.’”

Meanwhile, something that Carton has pulled from his pocket has caused a mysterious vapour near Darnay’s face to make the latter lose focus.

“The prisoner sprang up, with a reproachful look, but Carton’s hand was close and firm at his nostrils, and Carton’s left arm caught him round the waist. For a few seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down his life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on the ground.”

Now truly looking as though they had exchanged places, having exchanged outer dress and hair styles, Barsad is called back in to take Darnay’s unconscious figure out to Mr Lorry’s carriage that waits to take him out of the country, while Carton remains behind, in his place. As Sydney gathers with the other prisoners to be executed that day, a “little seamstress” recognizes him—until she looks closer and realizes that it is not the Evrémonde that she recalls.

“ ‘Are you dying for him?’ she whispered.

‘And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.’

‘O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?’

‘Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.’”

In the hands of the capable and now-comprehending Mr Lorry, the carriage makes its escape from Paris. The second carriage, with Miss Pross and Mr Cruncher, is to follow later. While Miss Pross finishes her preparations, Cruncher has gone to get the carriage ready at some distance from the house, so as not to arouse suspicion. Madame Defarge has decided, before the execution, to pay a visit to Evrémonde’s grieving wife, having that fault—Lucie’s grief over an enemy of the Republic—to add to the charges that Madame can bring against her. When Madame arrives, however, and encounters Miss Pross alone, there are signs of hurried packing. Though neither understands the language of the other, Pross knows that Madame Defarge is dangerous to all of her loved ones. Hoping to delay the discovery that all are gone from the house, she keeps Madame from looking in the other rooms.

“I know that the longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I’ll not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me!”

The two women fight and struggle, until Madame’s own gun, which Madame had been reaching for, fires by Miss Pross’s hand, and Madame Defarge falls down dead. The ringing of the shot, however, has caused hearing loss for Miss Pross, who runs to meet Mr Cruncher at the arranged carriage location.

“Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine.”

Madame Defarge is nowhere to be found, and the Vengeance desperately calls out for her.

In the third tumbril, the most peaceful of the prisoners stands with his hands entwined in those of the “little seamstress,” speaking with her. Sydney hears the story of the young woman’s cousin, who knows nothing of her fate. “Better as it is,” they agree. The girl asks to go first to the guillotine—number twenty-two—so that she can keep looking at his face until the last.

“ She goes next before him—is gone; the knitting women count Twenty-Two.

‘I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.’

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.”

At the conclusion of our tale, the narrator takes us on the interior journey of our hero’s final moments, and the prophetic vision of the future that he would have given utterance to, if he could have. Here, Sydney envisions all those “long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease from its present use.”

“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss…”

Sydney sees the lives for which he has given his own, “peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more.” He sees Lucie’s children, and her children’s children; he feels that he holds “a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence.” He sees the Doctor restored to health and utility. He sees “the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years’ time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.” He sees a boy of his own name growing up to be a man, and winning success in the world; a man who will one day bring a child of his own to this place, “and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and faltering voice.”

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

Discussion Wrap-Up (Weeks 7-8)

Miscellany; What We Loved

Many kids of a certain generation grew up discovering classic literature through the TV show, Wishbone. Here, the Stationmaster recalls being introduced to A Tale of Two Cities:

A question posed for our group by the Stationmaster–for a future post of his on Dickens adaptations–is whether we would recommend the 1935 (Ronald Colman) or the 1958 (Dirk Bogarde) version of A Tale of Two Cities. Gina responds, and I heartily agree:

If you’ve seen them both, which is your preferred?

A Tale of Two Cities and Barnaby Rudge: Theatricality, Mob Violence, and the “Heart of Darkness”

Throughout our journey with A Tale of Two Cities, we’ve been comparing it to Dickens’s only other historical novel, Barnaby Rudge. Here, the Stationmaster discusses why he prefers Barnaby Rudge:

Here, the Stationmaster quotes from Gillen D’Arcy Wood’s Introduction to A Tale of Two Cities, on the theatre aspect of the mob violence and the Terror:

Lenny responds, reflecting on the theatricality and “peepshow” aspect of the terrors of mob violence and bloodlust, also recalling Kurtz in Heart of Darkness:

Doubling; Foils

A Tale of Two Cities is our ultimate doubling story from an author who was a master at doubling, and we have several doubles/foils in the narrative. The Stationmaster considers Madame Defarge and Doctor Manette to be “foils” to one another:

Often, when Sydney is speaking–particularly in conversation with Mr Lorry towards the end–his phrases can be interpreted in two ways, as referring to another or to himself. Darnay’s reflections as he believes he is about to die can also apply to Sydney. Chris notes these “instances of ambiguity that augment the theme of doubling”:

The Reader in Dickens; The Larger Society; Circularity; Blood & Wine, Eucharist & Sacrifice

Here, Deborah touches on several subjects, but I wanted to keep her comment intact. She discusses the doubling of Miss Pross and Madame Defarge, England’s legal reforms of the period, the theme of blood and wine, and the way Dickens “closes the circle” of imagery/theme that he has presented to us:

Lenny responds, with the addition that the cask breaking section is “a kind of perverse ‘communion'” and that, for him, “the dabbing at the blood with the handkerchief and then eating, drinking the wine off the ends of the fabric/wafer cements the notion of Eucharist. As such, this whole scene becomes more than an illustration of people who are literally starving to death (mortally) but who are famished ‘spiritually.'”

Legacy, Little Lucie, and “A life you love”

And speaking of trauma…poor young Lucie has witnessed a great deal. But she is also portrayed by Dickens as being emotionally perceptive as regards the enigma that is Sydney Carton. Here, Chris reflects on the legacy that Sydney helps to preserve: he saves not only Lucie, but the life she loves…her husband, her child, her father.

“Psychology, psychology, psychology. It’s a psychological novel.”

Lenny’s response to Chris takes all of this in a new direction: the collective and individual psyches at work here in the narrative, centering, as he feels, on “Sydney, Dr. Manette, and Madame Defarge”:

Coming Full Circle, & Dickens as “The Haunted Man”: Time & Memory

The circularity, theme/imagery repetition, and the doubling never fail to amaze me in this novel. For one who has been haunted by Time and Memory since the beginning, Dickens allows these ghosts to fully pervade this novel, even in its timeline: it is 18 years from the start of Dr Manette’s imprisonment from our hidden prologue (1757) to when the novel begins and he is “recalled to life” in 1775; 18 years from the beginning of our novel in 1775 to when Sydney makes the ultimate sacrifice in December of 1793.

A Tale of Two Cities: A Final Thematic Wrap-Up

1. Contrasts: Light & Dark; Comedy & Tragedy; Life and Death (From the opening words, the dichotomies are set up. Within the same city, at the same time, we have both.)
2. Self-Definition Through Characterization; Dickens as the “Haunted Man” (Dickens’s involvement at this time with Wilkie Collins’s play, The Frozen Deep; his deteriorating marriage and the stress on his family come through in his writing. Sydney as expressing his interior torments; yet he gives his name/initials to Darnay.)
3. Dickens and Theatricality (An ongoing theme. Here, discussed more in light of the theatre of mob violence and bloodlust.)
4. The Joys of Reading Dickens Aloud (Some of us have listened to marvelous audiobooks: Simon Callow, Frank Muller, Anton Lesser, Rob Goll!)
5. A Tale of Two Cities and Barnaby Rudge; Dickens’s Social Conscience (We have discussed at length the parallels between Dickens’s two historical novels, and the theme of mob violence. The blame that falls upon neglected/unjust laws; abuses of the nobility.)
6. The Women in Dickens: Miss Pross, Madame Defarge (Though not possessing Dickens’s most vivid female lead, A Tale still has strong women who prove to be fantastic foils to one another.)
7. Doubling (The consummate doubling theme here, even physically, between Sydney and Charles Darnay. Also, the imprisonment/buried/recalled doubling between Dr Manette and Sydney; foils in Pross & Madame Defarge; doubling between Madame Defarge and Dr Manette, etc.)
8. Responsibility (The responsibility–or lack thereof–of Darnay re: his divesting himself of his inheritance. The much abused and neglected responsibilities of aristocrats/landlords towards those who serve them.)
9. Dickens’ “Writing Lab”: Atmosphere, Characterization; Theme/Imagery (Perhaps an example of the most successful use of echoing phrases and the fulfillment of themes/imagery.)
10. Dickens & Parentless Children (Sydney. Lucie–until her father is recalled to life.)
11. Forgiveness and Repentance; Sacrifice vs. Vengeance (Duality/doubling. What is the answer to “Vengeance”? Dickens seems to suggest self-sacrificial love.)
12. Dickens, Romanticism, and the Imagination (Continuing this theme from early on, for consideration. This kind of idealism and sacrifice represented the consummate stage melodrama–in the best sense.)
13. Imprisonment, Interior and Exterior (Manette’s literal 18-yr imprisonment in the Bastille; Sydney’s metaphorical imprisonment in hopelessness and self-hatred.)
14. Time, Memory, Circularity, Legacy (Sydney literally nicknamed “Memory”; this theme has been with us from the outset, and just as Mr Lorry “travels in the circle” as he nears his end, so too all of Dickens’s themes come full circle.)
15. A “Pilgrim’s Progress” From One Novel to Another (Part of the darker phase of Dickens’s works, yet potentially a new life, new peace, new idealism/hope?)
16. Death, Burial, Resurrection/ “Recalled to Life” (“Buried how long?” “Almost eighteen years…”; Jerry as Resurrection-Man in keeping with the Resurrection theme that haunts and comforts Sydney during his night walk towards the end, and inspires his final act.)
17. Blood and Wine; Eucharist/Sacrifice (From the initial spilling of the wine cask, to the tumbrils carrying the day’s “wine”–the blood of the executed–to the guillotine at the end. The dipping of the cloths in the wine/blood a Eucharistic image.)
18. Psychology, Mental Illness, and Trauma (Collective and individual psyches studied here, particularly Sydney, Dr Manette, and Madame Defarge.)

A Look-Ahead to Our Break Between Reads (27 Feb to 11 March, 2024)

This week and next, we’ll be on a two-week break between reads. We’d love to hear what you’ll be reading (Dickens or non-Dickens!) during the break!

We hope you can join us for our upcoming chat on A Tale of Two Cities on Saturday, 2 March, 2024. 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern/7pm GMT (London).

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, 12 March for Boze’s introduction to Great Expectations! Wot larks, Pip!