A Tale of Two Cities

by Marian Leighton (Adapter), Charles Dickens

In a specially adapted version by Marian Leighton

It was a time of terror and treason. . .a time of starving, oppressed people rising in revolt against an unconcerned aristocracy. . .a time when two cities, London and Paris, were caught up in this frenzy and hatred. Into this setting, Charles Dickens introduces his memorable characters, whose lives become excitingly intertwined: Dr. Alexandre Manette, the long-suffering prisoner in the Bastille; Lucie, his devoted daughter; Madame Defarge, the vengeful French woman knitting her patterns of death; Charles Darnay, the one-time aristocrat with compassion for the poor peasants; and Sidney Carton, the heroic failure who sacrifices his life for the happiness of the woman he loves. In the shadow of the terrible guillotine, these characters live an unforgettable TALE OF TWO CITIES.

Cover Illustration by Al Leiner

-from the back cover

Genres: Classics, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Childrens, Adventure, Young Adult, Historical

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Amit · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 ⭐

GENRE - FICTION

Today is a unique day 22.02.2022 a date which you read from the front to back or back to front will be the same.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens has an intresting plot however I felt at times it was slow and was confusing, I often had to go a couple of pages backward and try to understand where I am currently with the Story.
I felt Oliver Twist more interesting and easily understandable than this book. Nonetheless this is also a Classic and has a Fan Following.

Thank You 🙂

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay. It was a little slow, but it's a classic, so I didn't mind it being slow that much.

When I'm reading a classic I have more patience for it than reading a normal book that doesn't have an excuse to be slow.

I read this book of my own freewill, I didn't read it for school. So I didn't mind reading this book. It was good, as said from the 3/5.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eli enjoyed it

[Completely Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fine. This isn't really my kind of book, but at least this version was short and a quick read.

[Erin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

We were learning about the French Revolution in our homeschool, and Tale of Two Cities was the only book I could think of to include that was on-theme. Since the kids are only 9, I chose this one. It's an illustrated abridgment, intended for kids. You lose some for the sake of brevity, of course, but overall, it was well done. They enjoyed it!

[Logan Erdmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I would recommend it to high school students ages 16 and above, because the plot is harder to follow than most books usually require. The Tale of Two Cities starts off in France with a noble family. The nephew of the nobleman believes they are doing wrong to the people of France. He decides to change his last name and move to England. He falls in love with a beautiful woman and has a family. His father-in-law was once a prisoner in France’s towers. Meanwhile in France, there is a revolt and the crown is overthrown. The people of France kill all nobility and the nephew is found and put on trial. He is found guilty and sentenced to the guillotine. He finds a way to survive but, not on his own.

[Ms. B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every character plays an important role in this story. If Dickens introduced a character at the beginning of the book, you can be guaranteed they play a part in the ending. The fun part is figuring out how each character fits into the tale of Dr. Manette, his daughter Lucy, and her husband Darnay.

[Upendra Garg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young Lucie meets her father Dr. Manette who has lost his memory after spending long time in Bastille prison in France with the help of Mr. Lorry, banker. This is time under monarchy rule of King Louis XVI. Amidst hunger, poverty, resentment is rising against rich and noble and platform for revolution , terror and treason has been set. Lucie and brings father back to England and takes his care. Life takes turn and she marries to Charles Darnay, a disguised french noble living in england . Lucie and his family has to return to France where life becomes difficult. Bastille Prison has been demolished, King has been executed and atmosphere is chaotic and people are thirsty of blood of rich and wealthy. Events unfold and now charles Darnay is denounced for past crimes. Will be able to live? Story let's us a peek into human emotions, atmosphere at time of french revolution.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another work that I felt confident I had read or seen in some format before reading this edition, but realized pretty quickly that I had never met any of these characters or situations before. I hope to read the original soon because I’m confident this children’s adaptation left out a ton of story. I’m curious to see if Sidney’s intentions were as obvious and on the nose in the original as they are in this one, but even though it was obvious that Sidney was going to meet the guillotine pretty early on it was still a very emotional ending for this reader.

[Savion Stfleur · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not so enthusiastic to me. This book was about the time when England was fighting the American colonies and the French had joined the Americans in the battle. After this event in the book people were starting revolts against the Marquajes but because it wasn’t that detailed it made it less interesting. Overall it was a good book but not good enough to make you keep turning the pages.
I would recommend this book to someone who like historic fiction that are based on actual events.

[Catherine Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished in one sitting, roughly in 3 hours. I have not read any Charles Dickens' books and this adaptation got me hooked. Such a shame that I never got myself interested with his books not until I found this to read at my in-law's house. His original books will be now included into my 'To Be Read' list. This is a story of a common 18th century segregation of the poor and wealthy and how selfish and greedy the wealthiest and the noblemen were and couldn't careless about the poor ones. Sadly, it'still common and a problem at this age. Nevertheless, a surely wonderful read.

[Matthew Lauderdale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this Great Illustrated Classics edition with my 3 year old daughter. Unfortunately, this one didn't translate nearly as well as other stories. These books have always been good at taking stories with big events and concepts and making them easy and fun to read, but because the actual book of A Tale of Two Cities is very character focused, all of the weaknesses of these abridged editions were very apparent.

[Lucie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago and adored it so much! A Tale of Two Cities is my favorite novel, and Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton are two of the best literary heroes of all time. If you love tales of impossible choices, unrequited love, shocking plot twists, and incredible sacrifice, A Tale of Two Cities is the book for you!

[Puru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short yet beautiful, simple to read but hard to digest .....a book which portrayed the change brought about by the people of France against unjust and tyranny and of how love can come in between of all of this mess!Nice ....another good book from Dickens!Well go ahead and try this book...

[Josef · Rating 4 out of 5]

This abridged version keeps things interesting by sharing pictures on every page and simplifying the wording. It enjoyed it from cover-to-cover and would recommend if Charles Dickens is on your list to read but you don’t have the time to read the whole original.

[April]

This is my first children's book since i actually was a child, so it's hard for me to feel i can rate it fairly. I will say, however, that it's not really the most fun book for children-a bit violent and sad. But i guess that's our history! 🤦‍♀️😅🤷‍♀️

[David]

it was good

[Caitlin Christiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

The English language truly lacks the proper verbiage I would require to accurately put how I feel about this book into words.

[Aaryan Parikh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gripping tale. Didn't bore me. The initial chapters are all about character introduction and story build up. But the climax was worth it.

[Nouran · Rating 4 out of 5]

A favorite classic of mine but I'm still not satisfied with the ending when Sydney Carton sacrificed his life and was excuted instead of Charles Darnay.

[Amester · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a good book! I want to read the longer version now

[Greg Hovanesian · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I enjoyed this story, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as David Copperfield. But it was interesting story of history and human interest.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick easy read to help me make heads or tails of the original story.

[Ella Aila · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very confusing. It feels like there is some important info missing/ big gaps in the storyline.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I can't understand the plot of, and keep the characters straight in a kid version of A Tale of Two Cities, I don't think I will be successful in the grownup version. I'm setting the grownup version aside for now. Maybe I will try again in July.

[. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this for Literature for school (even though it's the kid's version), and I'm surprised I liked it.
It was surprisingly sad at the end (for me).. I wanted to cry at the end! :'(
I'll have to get the version that is not adapted.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ah, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. To be a child again and read all the Great Illustrated Classics books. I read this version of A Tale of Two Cities when I was very young. I remember reading it and finishing, but I don't remember what it was about at all, not what the story was about or any of my impressions of it. Must have been not very memorable. Thus the two stars.

I was a bit disillusioned when I got a little older and learned that all the Great Illustrated Classics books were abridged! I felt like I didn't actually read the book. So I went to the "adult" section of my school library and checked out A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, a massive tome that had not yet daunted me. I settled down and opened to the first page, and read the famous line that I already knew very well: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." This sentence seemed to go on forever (a.k.a. a couple of pages, although to my young mind, "forever" is how I perceived Dickens' wordiness) and it was at that point that I promptly closed the cover of the book and returned it directly to the library. Even at that age, I was an impatient reader. So began my long ambivalent relationship with Charles Dickens. While I have gone on and re-read many of the original books that I had read in Great Illustrated Classics form and loved them, I have no desire to read A Tale of Two Cities.

[Jered Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was hard to understand in the beginning. In the middle it was starting to make sense. The interesting part is how the two cities, the poor and rich differed. The poor was tired of the rich because they ate good, but the poor worked hard and got paid little. The poor would eat whatever they could find because they didn't want to starve. There was some violence because there were dangerous people, and in court people got accused of things. The king killed people who did very bad things with the guillotine so people wouldn't do those things. Lucy Manette, half English, half French. Mobs try to kill her and her family because they are royal. That puts them into a ton of danger since the poor are taking over France.

[Chase Musick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was very confusing at first because it was one that had a lot of characters which is always confusing but after a while I start to get a grip on all of the characters because they were all so different like people in real life. This made it feel like this book actually happened in real life which is always a plus in my grading book. Also their is a lot of character development in the book which also helps the whole separate theory. I would recommend this book to people who are good at remembering because later on you will need to remember things that happened in the beginning to get the ending.

[Shiela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not English nor French. I appreciate the plot though, but unfortunately I am not a fan of this genre. Nothing holds my interest in this book, well maybe the story of Lucie and her father Dr. Manette and the twist of their fate but no, I just can't get a grip of the thrill of this book. It wasn't enough to feed my wandering interest.

Should have read something close to my league then. So I couldn't give you a fair review for this one. Sorry.