The First Three Chapters of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

     The first three chapters (15 pages) of Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities serve as an introduction not only to the story, but also into the mind of Dickens himself. The first chapter gives information on the setting of the novel. The story is based in England and France in 1775. This time of chaos in the two countries is representative of the difficult times Dickens was living in when he wrote the novel. Chapter two starts with the dangerous journey of three passengers to Dover and the arrival of a messenger with an instructional message for one of the passengers, Mr. Lorry. Lorry's response, "Recalled to life", is mysterious but leads into the next chapter, which is a depiction of Lorry's troubling dreams about his job and his life. These troubling dreams represent the thoughts that Dickens himself had been having through his dark years in the 1860's, at the end of which he wrote this novel.