A Tale Of Two Cities And Great Expectations Oprahs Book Club Charles Dickens by Charles Dickens 9780142196588, 0142196584 instant download after payment.

Two of the most beloved novels in all of English literature--together in one extraordinary volume.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES
After 18 years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the aging Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of the two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror, and they soon fall under the lethal shadow of the guillotine.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor--these form a series of events that changes the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman. Dickens's haunting late novel depicts Pip’s education and development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his "great expectations."

This deluxe paperback edition features
•    French flaps
•    rough-cut high-quality paper
•    complimentary front- and back-cover designs highlighting each novel and including foil and debossing

A Charles Dickens Timeline

1812 Born February 7 in Portsmouth, England

1824 His father John sent to Marshalsea Debtor's Prison for a debt of £40 and 10 shillings

Began working 10-hour days in shoe-polish warehouse to help support family

1833 First story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," appeared in the Monthly Magazine

1836 First book, Sketches by Boz, collected his early journalism and stories

First novel, The Pickwick Papers, began its monthly serialization

Married Catherine Hogarth

1837-39 Oliver Twist appeared in monthly installments

1838-39 Nicholas Nickleby serialized

1840-41 The Old Curiosity Shop

1841 Barnaby Rudge

1842 American Notes, based on his tour that year of the United States

1843 The Christmas Carol, the first of his "Christmas tales"

1843-44 Martin Chuzzlewit

1846-48 Dombey and Son

1849-50 David Copperfield

1852-53 Bleak House

1854 Hard Times

1855-57 Little Dorrit

1857 Met actress Ellen Ternan, his longtime companion

1858 Separated from his wife, Catherine

1859 A Tale of Two Cities

1860-61 Great Expectations

1864-65 Our Mutual Friend

1867-68 Second tour of America

1868-69 Farewell reading tour of the British Isles

1870 The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished)

Died from a stroke on June 9

One of the grand masters of Victorian literature, Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation, but also the horror of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and "slave" factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years' formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney's clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after 23 years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of 58, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.