A Tale of Two Cities《雙城記》是英國(guó)作家查爾斯 狄更斯所著的一部以法國(guó)大革命為背景所寫成的長(zhǎng)篇?dú)v史小說(shuō)。故事中將巴黎、倫敦兩個(gè)大城市連結(jié)起來(lái)，圍繞著曼馬內(nèi)特醫(yī)生一家和以德發(fā)日夫婦為首的圣安東尼區(qū)展開(kāi)故事。小說(shuō)里描寫了貴族如何敗壞、如何殘害百姓，人民心中積壓對(duì)貴族的刻骨仇恨，導(dǎo)致了不可避免的法國(guó)大革命。書名中的“雙城”指的是巴黎與倫敦。
推薦理由：
1. 英國(guó)偉大現(xiàn)實(shí)主義作家狄更斯傳世之作；
2. 柯林斯經(jīng)典系列，含歷史背景及作者介紹(Life & Times)，后附英語(yǔ)詞匯注釋(Glossary of Classic Literature)，生詞表采用《柯林斯英語(yǔ)詞典》的解釋，有助于讀者學(xué)習(xí)理解；
3. 輕型環(huán)保紙印刷，小巧輕便，方便隨身攜帶閱讀。
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
Set before and during the French Revolution in the cities of Paris and London, A Tale of Two Cities tells the story of Dr Manette’s release from imprisonment in the Bastille and his reunion with daughter, Lucie. A French aristocrat Darnay and English lawyer Carton compete in their love for Lucie and the ensuing tale plays out against the menacing backdrop of the French Revolution and the shadow of the guillotine.
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Life & Times—a fascinating insight into the author, their work and the time of publication
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查爾斯 狄更斯(Charles Dickens，1812～1870)，1812年生于英國(guó)的樸次茅斯。15歲時(shí)，狄更斯在一家律師事務(wù)所當(dāng)抄寫員并學(xué)習(xí)速記，此后，又在報(bào)社任新聞?dòng)浾摺Ｔ凇队浭鲁繄?bào)》任記者時(shí)，狄更斯開(kāi)始發(fā)表一些具有諷刺和幽默內(nèi)容的短劇，主要反映倫敦的生活，逐漸有了名氣。他了解城市底層人民的生活和風(fēng)土人情，這些都體現(xiàn)在他熱情洋溢的筆端。此后，他在不同的雜志社任編輯、主編和發(fā)行人，其間發(fā)表了幾十部長(zhǎng)篇和短篇小說(shuō)，主要作品有The Pickwick Papers《匹克威克外傳》、Oliver Twist《霧都孤兒》、The Old Curiosity Shop《老古玩店》、Hard Times《艱難時(shí)世》、Our Mutual Friend《我們共同的朋友》、A Tale of Two Cities《雙城記》等。
As a child, Charles Dickens (1812–70) came to know not only hunger and privation, but also the horror of the infamous debtors’ prison and the evils of child labor. A surprise legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and “slave” factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years’ formal schooling. He taught himself shorthand and worked as a parliamentary reporter until his writing career took off with the publication of Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837). As a novelist and magazine editor, Dickens had a long run of serialized success through Our Mutual Friend (1864–65). In later years, ill health slowed him down, but he continued his popular dramatic readings from his fiction to an adoring public, which included Queen Victoria. At his death, The Mystery of Edwin Drood remained unfinished.
The Period
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
There were a king with a large jaw, and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw, and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.
It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood.
France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that suffer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.
