When the starving French masses rise in hate to overthrow a corrupt and decadent government, both the guilty and innocent become victims of their frenzied anger. Soon nothing stands in the way of the chilling figure they enlist for their cause - La Guillotine - the new inventionfor efficiently chopping off heads. A Tale of Two Cities is a highly-charged novel of human suffering and human sacrifice, private experience and public history, during the French Revolution. Charles Dickens' compelling portrait of the results of terror and treason, love and supreme sacrifice continues to captivate readers around the world. Unforgettable characters - the ever-knitting Madame Defarge, the lovely Lucie Manette, her broken father, the honorable Charles Darnay, and the sometimes scurrilous Sydney Carton - burst from the pages, full of life and passion. The novel leaves you feeling both thourghly happy and extremely sad, such is the skill with which Charles Dickens - beyond any doubt a master of his craft – tells this moving tale.