Cheating At Dickens (Tale Of Two Cities) , March 2017

In addition to last discussion about Tales of Two Cities by this Portsmouth author of some reknown Charles Dickens

(cheating with classic literature is allowable):

Sound recordings by chapter of Tale of Two Cities :

https://librivox.org/a-tale-of-two-cities-by-charles-dickens

Chapter and character notes:

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/a-tale-of-two-cities

The text is also available online in different formats:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/98

Dickens novel has some historical heft to it, as suggested by his use of historical allusions: His use of "Captain" as a general term for highway man, goes back to Captain Hind (according to current BBC4 outlaws series) who carried on the English Civil War as a royalist robbing wealthy parliamentarians. The French revolutionaries use of Jacque (Jaquerie) for a rebel goes back to the Hundred Years War, and a peasant revolt against the French aristocracy, whose contemptuous name for their feudal serfs was "Jacque".

Adding to the brilliant quote from Oscar Wilde that Norman reminded us of: "you must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing", it seems Oscar Wilde drew quite heavily on Dickens Little Dorrit , in the governess character of Miss Prism in "The Importance of Being Earnest" ( http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sjh/documents/prism.doc ). Wilde shares Dickens' use of the governance as a comic character. Miss Prism gives a famous definition : "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means .” I suppose Dickens would add if the good must die, it must be nobly, which is happily for them.

Regards All