A Tale Of Two Cities, Four Month Read Along. (Title edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

[DesdamonasHandkerchief]

Welcome to a 6 month read along of Dicken’s 12th novel A Tale of Two Cities
We will be reading it using the following format, and discussing the chapters on the first day of the following month: (So January chapters discussed from 1st Feb onwards etc)

A Tale of Two Cities

6-Month Read-Along Calendar

Start: 1 January 2026
Finish: 30 June 2026

🗓️
JANUARY 2026

Book the First: Recalled to Life
(Chapters 1–7)

✔ Book the First complete

🗓️
FEBRUARY 2026

Book the Second: The Golden Thread
(Chapters 1–6)

🗓️
MARCH 2026

Book the Second: The Golden Thread
(Chapters 7–12)

✔ Midway through Book the Second

🗓️
APRIL 2026

Book the Second: The Golden Thread
(Chapters 13–18)

🗓️
MAY 2026

Book the Second: The Golden Thread
(Chapters 19–24)

✔ Book the Second complete

🗓️
JUNE 2026

Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
(Chapters 1–15)

✔ Novel complete

I know very little about this book other than its set in revolutionary Paris and London, let’s hope it’s a goodie!

Like you @Benvenuto I'm very sceptical that it was Jane Austen who set the trend for angelic heroines! I haven't read Austen for a long time but as I recall, her heroines are quite feisty.

I think a lot of blame can be traced back to Christianity and the dichotomy of virgin/whore, or Mary/Eve. I've read plenty of medieval literature where the women are either very good or very evil (so more like stock characters or types) whereas the men are more complicated, more human figures. This is probably down to most early Western literature being written by men! Yet there are also plenty of literary texts that present women in more complicated ways. Think of Chaucer's Wife of Bath for example.

A lot of Dickens' women fall into the good/bad dichotomy (though some of his 'dark' women, like Edith Granger in Dombey and Son, or Lady Dedlock in Bleak House, can be complex and sympathetically presented).

I think his most appealing/interesting female characters are the ones who aren't the heroines (and who are often lower-class): Mrs Pross, Aunt Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield, the comic Mrs Nickleby... I'm sure there are more.

The Victorians do seem to have been particularly attached to pure, virginal heroines. There's the 'Angel in the House' poem, published in 1854 by Coventry Patmore (an obscure name!), and the way Virginia Woolf identifies and attacks this trope in her 1931 essay 'Professions for Women' is absolutely wonderful.

I just looked the essay up and here is a quotation from it that sounds SO MUCH like Lucie:

You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her - you may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House.

I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it - in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. Above all - I need not say it - she was pure. Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty - her blushes, her great grace. In those days - the last of Queen Victoria - every house had its Angel.

I have to laugh at, 'if there was a draught she sat in it'!

https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/news/professions-women

Link to the whole essay. Woolf said she had to 'kill' the Angel in the House before she herself could start writing.

I don't think Angels of the House were meant to be ginger! 😂

Btw the representation of female solidarity and collective female action embodied by Mme Defarge and the Tricoteuses is very interesting. The Tricoteuses were historically real apparently (women who watched the public executions while knitting) but I think the idea of Mme Defarge putting coded names into her knitting was an innovation by Dickens? At any rate it's a scary image of what women acting together can do. The men are much less scary in comparison.

The 'good' women in the text exhibit a more positive version of female solidarity: Lucie appeals to Mme Defarge as a 'sister woman' and mother, Charles Darnay's mother wants to find the younger sister of the dead peasant girl and help her. But these instances of would-be female solidarity don't amount to anything; it's only the Tricoteuses who are effective (and how feminist are they, if they're shoring up a revolution led by men, and are happy to sacrifice other women along the way?).

Just one more thing to @Benvenuto : you're right about Valjean not being evil; I was lazy when I used that term! About the parallel between him and Sydney Carton, maybe it's more that they both go from being not particularly virtuous to becoming paradigms of virtue/goodness. Or going from not perceiving their own lives as meaningful, to finding a way to instill their lives with meaning, by helping others.

I guess women like Lucie don't get to go on this psychological journey because they are completely virtuous and self-sacrificing in the first place!

That description by Woolf is definitely Lucy - a self sacrificing martyr is ever there was one.

@cassandre- that quote about the draft is so apt! Will post more when I have read the essay.

I can’t help wondering if part of the apoeal of bad / poor women for Dickens is that they do/say more which gives him more scope for characterisation, as he is very theatrical in how he depicts characters. There’s no a lot of scope for his talents if a character is perfectly behaved all of the time.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh- you may have the reason why Lucie has red hair in the new version (to trick us into thinking that she is interesting).

And Sydney Carton is far more interesting than Darnay!

Darnay isn't a heroic character. He keeps needing to be saved, and it's Sydney who has to keep saving him. The one time he does something decisive - going off to France - he just causes everyone a lot of trouble and grief. He and Lucie are both a bit wet. I should think if Sydney had married Lucie, he'd have been a bit bored with her after a while.

I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily....

Beth March.

I've not yet finished, I still have a couple of chapters to go (I know how it ends already though!). Agree that this is a very readable Dickens however, due to life in general and focusing too much on the WP list I fell massively behind so switched to audio, which was a game-changer for me.
I'll definitely look out for the new adaptation and may watch the Dirk Bogarde version as I love an older movie.

@HelenaWilson I always thought Sydney would have done all right with a nice clever widow who had a bit of life experience and gently bossed him about a bit, keeping him out of the decanter and in chambers a bit more. Maybe with a couple of sons to whom he could be a reserved but kindly stepfather. Basically a more toned down version of the woman Stryver marries!

I always thought Sydney would have done all right with a nice clever widow who had a bit of life experience and gently bossed him about a bit,

One of Georgette Heyer's heroines - Mary Challoner or Venetia or maybe Sarah Thane - might have suited him.

Who is reading your Audible version @InTheCludgie ?
I listened to some TOTC chapters read by Julian Rind-Tutt free with Spotify and enjoyed his reading.

I think you’re right that SC would have got bored with perfect Lucy if he’d managed to snag her @HelenaWilson, but then I often think these literary love stories/happy ever afters would end in disaster IRL.

It was a loan via Libby and read by Adam Henderson. Will we be doing another readalong, what are peoples thoughts?

I’d love to reconvene to discuss the adaptation of this book when it comes out.
PiggyWasPushed normally does the Dicken’s read alongs. I took on this one because she has already read it and it was a book I was keen to tackle. She did say after Dombey & Son however that she was ‘all Dickensed out’ as she’d read them all now apart from Edwin Drood and The Pickwick Papers neither of which she fancies so I don’t think we’d be stepping on any toes to start another read along.
Next on my personal Dickens hit list is Oliver Twist if anyone fancies that? Although I’m knee deep in Jane Eyre atm and I have a few Kindle books to finish so would be looking to start in June or July.

I’m up for an Oliver Twist readalong. I have read it but that was probably 20 years ago so I don’t remember much about it.

@HelenaWilson OMG yes Beth March! And that's a book by a woman author... I think Alcott herself was no Beth.

I'd be keen on an Oliver readalong, thanks Desdamona! I read it when I was young and hated it, but I was probably too young. Would like to read it again as an adult.

The idea of taking a break for a month or so is good too.

I forgot to say that I also love the idea of reconvening to discuss the TV adaptation of A Tale.

I would definitely love to read 'Oliver Twist'.

I'm not sure if I can watch the TV series of ATOTC because* *I'm in Ireland.

Don’t you get BBC there Fuzzy?

I'd have to pay for it, Desdamona.
Getting the BBC iplayer seems complicated. I'd need a VPN and it still might not work.

I would be up for another readalong but maybe not until the autumn/next year. I haven't read Oliver Twist though so it is tempting! Looking forward to the TV adaptation. Thanks so much for the TOTC readalong - it has been fab.

Thanks for the thread. As usual I've caught up slightly behind the pace
I loved the atmosphere of this one but it didn't grab me plot wise as much as some of the other Dickens, until the end then I was hooked. Go Miss Pross!

I’d be up for Oliver Twist later in the year!

Should we say a September start for Ollie and I’ll @ everyone who’s expressed an interest? And also check with Piggy that she’s not planning a Dickensalong.