A Tale of Two Cities: Classics Illustrated

by Charles Dickens, George Evans (Illustrator), Joe Orlando (Illustrator)

Overview

Dickens's classic story of the French Revolution.

Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colorful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes theme discussions and study questions, which can be used both in the classroom or at home to further engage the reader in the story.

The Classics Illustrated comic book series began life in 1941 with its first issue, Alexandre Dumas’ "The Three Musketeers", and has since included over 200 classic tales released around the world. This new edition is specifically tailored to engage and educate young readers with some of the greatest works ever written, while still thrilling older readers who have loving memories of this series of old. Each book contains dedicated theme discussions and study questions to further develop the reader’s understanding and enjoyment of the work at hand.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781906814618
Publisher:	Classics Illustrated Comics
Publication date:	11/05/2015
Series:	Classics Illustrated , #35
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 11 Years

About the Author

Charles Dickens (7 February 1812 - 9 June 1870) is considered the greatest novelist of the Victorian era and created many of the worlds most notable fictional characters, including Fagin, Mr Micawber and Miss Havisham.

George Evans was an American comics illustrator with a large number of credits to his name, including work for such comics publishers as Fiction House, Fawcett, EC Comics, DC Comics, Gold Key and several title adaptations for Gilberton's Classics Illustrated series.

JOE ORLANDO was born in Bari, Italy, but his family emigrated to the USA and settled in New York City in 1929. He attended the High School of Industrial Art before being drafted into the Army, where he served in the Military Police in France, Belgium and Germany. Back in civil life, he studied at the Art Students League in New York. He published his first comic, the feature 'Chuck White', in titles like Catholic Comics and Treasure Chest. He then opened a small studio with Wallace Wood, where they were joined by young artists like Sid Check and Harry Harisson. Wood and Orlando worked as a tandem on Fox features like 'Dorothy Lamour', 'Martin Kane', 'Frank Buck', 'Judy Canova' and 'Pedro'.

When Fox folded in 1950, the discouraged Orlando went to work at a handbag manufacturer, but was soon brought back to comics by Wood, who could use some help with his heavy workload. They shared art duties on comics for Avon ('An Earth Man on Venus', 'Strange Worlds', 'The Mask of Dr. Fu Manchu'), Youthful Magazines ('Captain Science') and Master Comics ('Dark Mysteries'), as well as EC.

At EC, he became a solo artist, and was one of the staples of the New Trend's science fiction titles (Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, Weird Science/Fantasy), especially for the 'Adam Link' stories he made with Otto Binder. Orlando also had stories published in the horror and crime titles, as well as the humor title Panic.

When EC stopped publishing comic books in 1956, due to Fredric Wertham's campaign against violent comics, Orlando transferred to Stan Lee's Atlas, working on titles like Mystic and Astonishing. Orlando also contributed art for three issues in Gilberton's Classics Illustrated series, namely 'A Tale of Two Cities', 'Caesar's Conquests' and 'Ben Hur'.

In 1957, he went back to EC when he became a regular contributor to Mad magazine, among others by taking over 'Scenes We'd Like to See' from Phil Interlandi. In the mid 1990s, he also worked for Marvel's Daredevil and the James Warren magazines Creepy and Eerie.

Orlando joined DC Comics in 1966, initially doing art on 'Swing with Scooter' and 'The Inferior Five', before becoming an editor under Carmen Infantino. Besides editing existing titles like 'House of Mystery' (in which he introduced the hosts Cain and Abel) and 'Swing with Scooter', new titles were created under his helm, such as 'Swamp Thing', 'Phantom Stranger', 'Jonah Hex' and 'The Sandman'. He also co-launched and drew for DC's new humor title PLOP! in 1973, and provided magazine art to National Lampoon and Newsweek. At DC he eventually became Vice President and Editorial Director, and even became head of MAD, after the death of Bill Gaines in 1992. In addition, Orlando was a teacher at New York's School of Visual Arts.

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1812

Date of Death:

June 18, 1870

Place of Birth:

Portsmouth, England

Place of Death:

Gad's Hill, Kent, England

Education:

Home-schooling; attended Dame School at Chatham briefly and Wellington

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

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 tothe 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.

In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow tradesman whom he stopped in his character of 'the Captain,' gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, 'in consequence of the failure of his ammunition'; after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; today, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and tomorrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence.

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand.

Table of Contents

	Insights into Charles Dickens
Book 1	Recalled to Life
Chapter 1	The Period	16
Chapter 2	The Mail	20
Chapter 3	The Night Shadows (Summary)	27
Chapter 4	The Preparation	28
Chapter 5	The Wine-Shop	41
Chapter 6	The Shoemaker	53
Book 2	The Golden Thread
Chapter 1	Five Years Later (Summary)	67
Chapter 2	A Sight	69
Chapter 3	A Disappointment	77
Chapter 4	Congratulatory (Summary)	92
Chapter 5	The Jackal	94
Chapter 6	Hundreds of People (Summary)	101
Chapter 7	Monseigneur in Town (Summary)	103
Chapter 8	Monseigneur in the Country (Summary)	104
Chapter 9	The Gorgon's Head	105
Chapter 10	Two Promises	119
Chapter 11	A Companion Picture (Summary)	127
Chapter 12	The Fellow of Delicacy (Summary)	128
Chapter 13	The Fellow of No Delicacy	129
Chapter 14	The Honest Tradesman	134
Chapter 15	Knitting	145
Chapter 16	Still Knitting	157
Chapter 17	One Night (Summary)	169
Chapter 18	Nine Days	170
Chapter 19	An Opinion	177
Chapter 20	A Plea (Summary)	185
Chapter 21	Echoing Footsteps	186
Chapter 22	The Sea Still Rises	199
Chapter 23	Fire Rises (Summary)	205
Chapter 24	Drawn to the Loadstone Rock	207
Book 3	The Track of A Storm
Chapter 1	In Secret	221
Chapter 2	The Grindstone (Summary)	234
Chapter 3	The Shadow	236
Chapter 4	Calm in Storm (Summary)	242
Chapter 5	The Wood-Sawyer (Summary)	244
Chapter 6	Triumph	246
Chapter 7	A Knock at the Door (Summary)	254
Chapter 8	A Hand at Cards	255
Chapter 9	The Game Made	268
Chapter 10	The Substance of the Shadow	283
Chapter 11	Dusk (Summary)	298
Chapter 12	Darkness	299
Chapter 13	Fifty-Two	308
Chapter 14	The Knitting Done	321
Chapter 15	The Footsteps Die Out Forever	334

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Charles Dickens's classic of the French Revolution is expertly dramatized by Simon Vance." —-AudioFile

Editorial Reviews

"I've come to prefer Oxford's editions of my texts because of the usefulness of the explanatory notes and above all the inclusion of vital contextual information about publishing practices (serialization dates, etc.) and historical background that are essential to my nethod of instruction."—Prof. Martha Holmes, Univ. of Colorado

From the Publisher