Facts about A Tale of Two Cities: Historical Accuracy
- 05
Dickens accurately depicted the Marquis St. Evrémonde's aristocratic contempt for the poor, reflecting real pre-revolutionary French noble attitudes toward peasants.
- 04
In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens accurately portrays the revolutionary tribunal system that condemned citizens with little or no genuine legal defense.
- 03
A Tale of Two Cities accurately reflects the historical reality of the Reign of Terror, during which thousands of people were executed by guillotine in France.
- 02
The character of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities has no confirmed single historical counterpart, as Dickens invented him as a fictional composite.
- 01
Dickens based the storming of the Bastille sequence in A Tale of Two Cities on Thomas Carlyle's history of the French Revolution as a primary source.