A Tale of Two Cities

Nov 10, 2025 2:41 AM

Author:Charles Dickens,Julian Rhind-Tutt,Richard Maxwell

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Julian Rhind-Tutt, star of Green Wing, also known for his roles in The Madness of King George and Tomb Raider. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Richard Maxwell.

After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille the aging Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil lanes of London, they are all drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror and soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

Reviews

Dazzling, funny as hell, poignant, all the things.

—— Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

Juliet Takes a Breath is absolutely breathtaking. This is the homegirl I've always wanted to see in literature, made flesh by Rivera's pen.

—— Elizabeth Acevedo, Carnegie Award winning author of The Poet X

Rivera captures both the disappointments and the possibilities that come with realising that your life's solution cannot be figured out by someone else.

—— The New York Times Book Review

Reflects early adult life . . . in all its messy, confusing splendor.

—— Publishers Weekly, starred review

A whirlwind coming-of-age story that leaves one breathless.

—— Kirkus Reviews

The novel gallops forward, full of danger, delight and surprise. Nearly miraculous, it seems, is Pullman's ability to sketch character, place and motive in just a few lines

—— New Statesman

A long, taxing, complex journey, laced with beauty, terror and philosophy

—— Metro

As ever, Pullman's story is complex and vast but home to some of the finest storytelling in the 21st century. Revel in whole new worlds and enjoy one of literature's most wonderful heroines before she comes to HBO and the BBC

—— Stylist

Pullman is confronting readers with the horrors of our own world reflected back at us. In The Secret Commonwealth he creates a fearful symmetry

—— The Herald

Pullman has created a fantasy world, made yet more satisfying in this new volume. This is a book for getting older with

—— Guardian

REVIEWS FOR LA BELLE SAUVAGE: THE BOOK OF DUST VOLUME ONE:

Fans of His Dark Materials will find themselves joyfully immersed in a familiar world . . . meanwhile, awaiting first-time readers is all the pleasure of commencing their own journey into this most captivating of universes at the very beginning of Lyra's story

—— Independent

No one else writes like Pullman . . . entirely worth the 17-year wait

—— Imogen Russell Williams, Metro

A rich, imaginative, vividly characterised rite-of-passage tale

—— Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times

High-octane adventure accompanies ingenious plotting

—— The Times

One of the most influential novelists of his generation

—— Observer

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