Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
A Tale of Two Cities (Large Print Edition) - cover

A Tale of Two Cities (Large Print Edition)

Charles Dickens

Publisher: LBA

  • 0
  • 1
  • 0

Summary

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is the second historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. It depicts the plight of the French proletariat under the brutal oppression of the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, and the corresponding savage brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events, most notably Charles Darnay, a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Sydney Carton, a dissipated English barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette.
Available since: 10/10/2017.

Other books that might interest you

  • Immensee - cover

    Immensee

    Theodor Storm

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Theodor Storm (1817 - 1888) was a North German writer, widely recognized as one of the most important authors of 19th-century German Literary realism. His semi-autobiographical novella, Immensee, is the work that made him famous and remains to this day one of his most widely read. Its rich and multi-layered symbolism along with its deep sentimentality make it an intriguing and touching tale.On the surface, Immensee is a simple love story, of an old man, Reinhardt Werner, remembering Elisabeth, the lost sweetheart of his youth, who married his best friend, Erich. Reinhardt had neglected their relationship when he had gone away to university, and after two years when he failed to write to Elisabeth, she gave up waiting and accepted a marriage proposal from Erich, a wealthy young farmer with a fine house on the shores of the Immensee. There are hints that Reinhadt may have had other affairs as a student, but much in the story is implicit rather than explicit, leaving the listener to speculate and ponder on what was or might have been.On visiting Erich and Elisabeth years later, Reinhardt discovers that their doomed love still beats in both breasts, but now it is a passion which can only cause them pain and suffering. One night he sees a white water lily out on the lake and tries to swim out to it. But when he gets there, the roots threaten to entangle him and he extricates himself with difficulty and swims away. But how can he extricate himself from his love for Elisabeth?
    Show book
  • The Soul of Man - cover

    The Soul of Man

    Oscar Wilde

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Published originally as "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," this is not so much a work of sober political analysis; rather it can be summed up as a rhapsodic manifesto on behalf of the Individual. Socialism having deployed technology to liberate the whole of humanity from soul-destroying labour, the State obligingly withers away to allow the free development of a joyful, anarchic hedonism... 
    "Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing." 
    Far from abandoning the epigram in favour of the slogan, Wilde wittily assails several of his favourite targets: the misguided purveyors of philanthropy; life-denying ascetics of various kinds; the army of the half-educated who constitute themselves the enemies of Art—and those venal popular journalists who cater to them...
    Show book
  • Bernice Bobs Her Hair - cover

    Bernice Bobs Her Hair

    F. Scott Fitzgerald

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on 24th September 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota into an upper-middle class family. Whilst his mother was pregnant with him, his two young sisters tragically died.  Fitzgerald once said this was when his destiny as a writer was ordained. 
     
    His intelligence and talent was recognised from an early age, with his first story, about a detective being published in the school magazine when he was just 13.   
     
    In 1913 he enrolled at Princeton but his devotion to his own literary pursuits resulted in him leaving and, rather bizarrely, joining the Army.  In 1918, stationed at Fort Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama he met and became infatuated and then inseparable from Zelda Sayre.  Initially though she refused to marry him but with the success of ‘This Side of Paradise’, the fame and the flow of money enabled them both to begin a gilded life.  For them this was The Jazz Age.  For Fitzgerald he was already an alcoholic. 
     
    He continued to write with great mastery and the titles of his novels and many of his 164 short stories are household names.  The Great Gatsby, often cited as The Great American Novel was published to mixed reviews.  As America moved from the Great Depression to the slaughter of the Second World War his works and himself were seen as far too entwined with the decadent twenties. The world had moved on and he hadn’t.   
     
    Further tragedy was never far from his life. Zelda after years of erratic and now intolerable behaviour was committed to an institution in 1936.  His own sales began to decline and he became a hack for hire in Hollywood, dependent on increasing amounts of booze and the weekly pay check.  His drunken state had often resulted in arrest or hospitalisation, further imperiling his talents.   Despite his contribution to many MGM films he received only one credit. 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    The end came all too soon for one of America’s greatest ever writers.  On 21st December 1940, at only 44 years of age in Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald succumbed to a heart attack. 
     
    His classic ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ carefully pulls apart the relationship between two cousins one hot summer.  Something has to give and with Fitzgerald its an absolute certainty that the brittle lives of young women finally snap in unique ways.
    Show book
  • The Tragedy of Julius Caesar - cover

    The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

    William Shakespeare

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a history play and tragedy by William Shakespeare first performed in 1599. It is one of several plays written by Shakespeare based on true events from Roman history, such as Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra.
    Set in Rome in 44 BC, the play depicts the moral dilemma of Brutus as he joins a conspiracy led by Cassius to murder Julius Caesar to prevent him from becoming dictator of Rome. Following Caesar's death, Rome is thrust into a period of civil war, and the republic the conspirators sought to preserve is lost forever.
    Although the play is named Julius Caesar, Brutus speaks more than four times as many lines as the title character; and the central psychological drama of the play focuses on Brutus' struggle between the conflicting demands of honour, patriotism, and friendship. 
    Among the most significant works William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Orpheus, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest, Venus and Adonis, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, The Winter's Tale and many more.
    Show book
  • Shamela - cover

    Shamela

    Henry Fielding

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Shamela is a bawdy, spirited and hilarious response to Samuel Richardson’s hugely popular 1740 novel, Pamela.In this pointed satire, Shamela (which transpires to be the real name of Richardson’s Pamela) reveals the ulterior motives behind the events that took place in Pamela. Shamela is unlike the virtuous young lady portrayed in Richardson’s novel and she takes command of her master, Squire Booby. Our heroine has planned it all out from the start and she is determined to entrap her master into marriage. Fielding, most famous as the author of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, equated morality with expediency, and he takes advantage of the comic form to provide a multi-layered satire of contemporary politics and values. He lampoons political figures, the clergy and contemporary writers with criticisms that, most importantly, contribute to a comic tour-de-force unlike any other.
    Show book
  • The Empty House - cover

    The Empty House

    Algernon Blackwood

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Algernon Blackwood was born on 14th March 1869 in Shooter’s Hill, South East London, to a religious middle-class family. His mother was a widowed Duchess and his father was a Post Office administrator.  
     
    Blackwood was interested in the paranormal and the supernatural at an early age, and had a thirst for anything on Buddhism, other Oriental philosophies, mysticism and occultism.  In his writings the weaving of the supernatural into his various works, from ghost stories and children’s stories to plays and long novels is clearly seen, his writings beautifully enriched by his long and diversified life experience.  
     
    After leaving university and visiting parts of Europe, mainly Switzerland, the young writer went to Canada and the United States where he took on jobs including work as a farmer, a bartender, a secretary, a journalist, a reporter, running a hotel and teaching the violin.  He was voracious in meeting new people and absorbing new ideas.  
     
    In his late thirties, he returned to England where he published two of his supernatural stories in Pall Mall Magazine. As more of his highly entertaining stories were published so did his reputation and his bank balance.  All those years of curiosity and experiences were starting to emerge from his writing. 
     
    In 1906, ‘The Empty House & Other Ghost Stories’ was published with tremendous success.  Further volumes of short stories followed and with it a larger audience and bigger paydays. He also published children’s stories. 
     
    Blackwood also had ideas for novels and to explore on a larger canvas the paranormal world and the relationship between man and metaphysical powers including, in 1911, ‘The Centaur’.  
     
    With the outbreak of the First World War, Blackwood was assigned to British intelligence to write propaganda to support the war effort. 
     
    He was a prolific author with a quite staggering output which was also to include many plays. The exact number of his works is unknown as he would frequently write a story for a newspaper or periodical at very short notice.  
     
    In 1949, Blackwood was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his literary talents and his services during the First World War.  
     
    Algernon Blackwood died on 10th December 1951 after a series of strokes.  
     
    The Empty House is one of his most famous ghost stories. A man accompanies his adventurous aunt to a notorious haunted house. As the two exploring its’ dark, empty rooms, it becomes apparent that the house has not forgotten the earlier tragedy.
    Show book