为什么狄更斯在他那个时代是英国和美国*受欢迎的作家之一? 或许能够从《双城记》找到答案。狄更斯声称这是他*好的故事。《双城记》（1859年）是英国作家查尔斯·狄更斯所著的描述法国大革命一部大时代长篇历史小说，“双城”指的是巴黎与伦敦。《双城记》有其不同于一般历史小说的地方，它的人物和主要情节都是虚构的，写得很巧妙。狄更斯介绍了一系列人物，他们分布在两个国家，跨越了不同的社会阶层和政治派别，然后毫不费力地将他们的故事和秘密编织在一起。在法国大革命广阔的真实背景下，作者以虚构人物梅尼特医生的经历为主线索，把冤狱、爱情与复仇三个互相独立而又互相关联的故事交织在一起。
【内容简介】
《双城记》以法国大革命为背景，围绕寓居巴黎的曼奈特医生一家的命运展开情节，曼奈特一次出诊目睹侯爵府中的淫乐情景，被投入监狱，妻子心碎而死。18年后曼奈特出狱，独女露茜将他接至伦敦，而与露茜真诚相恋的达雷恰巧是侯爵的侄子，他憎恶家族的罪恶，毅然放弃了家族财产；为了女儿的幸福，曼奈特捐弃前嫌，欣然同意了女儿的婚事。小说真实地再现了资产阶级新贵残害百姓的败行，预示了即将到来的革命风暴。
《双城记》在狄更斯的创作中占有特殊重要地位，在概括时代精神的深度和广度上都有很大发展，技法亦愈加纯熟，语言精粹，情节感人，因而一直为广大读者所喜爱。
【作者简介】
查尔斯·狄更斯（1812—1870），19世纪英国现实主义文学大师。他一生共创作了14部长篇小说，许多中、短篇小说，还有杂文、游记、戏剧、小品等。其中著名的作品是《双城记》《大卫·科波菲尔》《雾都孤儿》《远大前程》等。狄更斯的作品以妙趣横生的幽默、细致入微的心理分析以及现实主义描写与浪漫主义气氛的有机结合著称。马克思把他和萨克雷等称誉为英国的“一批杰出的小说家”。
【目录】
Book the First—Recalled to Life
I The Period ...............................................................................002
II The Mail ................................................................................006
III The Night Shadows ............................................................. 014
IV The Preparation ..................................................................020
V The Wine-Shop ......................................................................035
VI The Shoemaker ....................................................................049
Book the Second—the Golden Thread
I Five Years Later ......................................................................064
II A Sight .....................................................................................072
III A Disappointment ...............................................................081
IV Congratulatory .....................................................................098
V The Jackal............................................................................... 106
VI Hundreds of People .............................................................. 114
VII Monseigneur in Town ........................................................130
VIII Monseigneur in the Country ............................................ 141
IX The Gorgon’s Head ..............................................................148
X Two Promises ........................................................................ 162
XI A Companion Picture .......................................................... 172
XII The Fellow of Delicacy ....................................................... 177
XIII The Fellow of No Delicacy ..............................................186
XIV The Honest Tradesman .................................................... 192
XV Knitting ................................................................................205
XVI Still Knitting ...................................................................... 219
XVII One Night ........................................................................ 233
XVIII Nine Days ...................................................................... 240
XIX An Opinion ........................................................................248
XX A Plea ................................................................................... 258
XXI Echoing Footsteps .............................................................263
XXII The Sea Still Rises ............................................................ 278
XXIII Fire Rises ........................................................................ 285
XXIV Drawn to the Loadstone Rock ..................................... 294
Book the Third—the Track of a Storm
I In Secret ...................................................................................310
II The Grindstone ...................................................................... 325
III The Shadow .......................................................................... 334
IV Calm in Storm ....................................................................... 341
V The Wood-Sawyer .................................................................348
VI Triump ................................................................................... 356
VII A Knock at the Door .......................................................... 365
VIII A Hand at Cards ................................................................ 372
IX The Game Made .................................................................. 388
X The Substance of the Shadow ..............................................404
XI Dusk .......................................................................................422
XII Darkness ..............................................................................427
XIII Fifty-Two ...........................................................................438
XIV The Knitting Done............................................................454
XV The Footsteps Die Out For Ever ...................................... 470
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I 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 sufferer 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.
