A Tale of Two Cities. Чарльз Диккенс. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Чарльз Диккенс
Издательство: HarperCollins
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Жанр произведения: Классическая проза
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780007382545
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performer. He was the William Shakespeare of the Victorian age, both writing and taking to the stage as a storyteller. This makes it easy to understand why his characters had such pronounced identities, because Dickens would mentally assume different roles whilst story telling, both on paper and when treading the boards.

      As any parent or teacher will attest, it is quite necessary to exaggerate characters with gestures and voices while story telling to capture the imagination of the audience and leave no confusion about who is who. This is exactly what Dickens was doing, so that his version of the Victorian world became one of overblown polarity: villains and do-gooders, the devout and the morally fallen, the wealthy and the poor, the beautiful and the ugly, the selfish and the selfless. Those who fall ‘somewhere between’ truly are the silent majority in Dickensian Britain.

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       PREFACE

      When I was acting, with my children and friends, in Mr. Wilkie Collins’s drama of The Frozen Deep, I first conceived the main idea of this story. A strong desire was upon me then, to embody it in my own person; and I traced out in my fancy, the state of mind of which it would necessitate the presentation of an observant spectator, with particular care and interest.

      As the idea became familiar to me, it gradually shaped itself into its present form. Throughout its execution, it has had complete possession of me; I have so far verified what is done and suffered in these pages, as that I have certainly done and suffered it all myself.

      Whenever any reference (however slight) is made here to the condition of the French people before or during the Revolution, it is truly made, on the faith of the most trustworthy witnesses. It has been one of my hopes to add something to the popular and picturesque means of understanding that terrible time, though no one can hope to add anything to the philosophy of Mr. Carlyle’s wonderful book.

       November 1859

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

       CHAPTER 7 Monseigneur in Town

       CHAPTER 8 Monseigneur in the Country

       CHAPTER 9 The Gorgon’s Head

       CHAPTER 10 Two Promises

       CHAPTER 11 A Companion Picture

       CHAPTER 12 The Fellow of Delicacy

       CHAPTER 13 The Fellow of No Delicacy

       CHAPTER 14 The Honest Tradesman

       CHAPTER 15 Knitting

       CHAPTER 16 Still Knitting

       CHAPTER 17 One Night

       CHAPTER 18 Nine Days

       CHAPTER 19 An Opinion

       CHAPTER 20 A Plea

       CHAPTER 21 Echoing Footsteps

       CHAPTER 22 The Sea Still Rises

       CHAPTER 23 Fire Rises

       CHAPTER 24 Drawn to the Loadstone Rock

       BOOK THREE The Track of a Storm

       CHAPTER 1 In Secret

       CHAPTER 2 The Grindstone

       CHAPTER 3 The Shadow

       CHAPTER 4 Calm in Storm

       CHAPTER 5 The Wood-sawyer

       CHAPTER 6 Triumph

       CHAPTER 7 A Knock at the Door