On February 7, 1812 in Portsea, Charles Dickens began his life. His father, John Dickens, spent little time with Charles. The family lived in poverty and John was in prison much of the time. When Charles was two, the family moved to London. At age twelve, Charles worked in a factory pasting labels on bottles of shoe polish. He only worked there for a few months, but it was a miserable experience that would remain with him his whole life.

Dickens attended school until he was fifteen. He always enjoyed reading, and especially adventure stories, fairy tales, and novels. Authors like William Shakespeare, Tobias Smollet, and Henry Fielding greatly influenced his work. However, most of the knowledge he used as an author came from his environment around him.

In the late 1820s, Dickens became a newspaper writer and reporter. Dickens= first book, Sketches by Boz, written in 1836, consisted of articles he wrote for the London Chronicles. After he married Cather

Through his life, Dickens was an actor, a conjurer, a poet, a lecturer, and an editor. Dickens had a remarkable mental and physical energy. This led to involvement in many organizations until 1865 when Dickens health started to decline. In 1870 Dickens died of a stroke. The world remembers him as one of the best authors in history.

Doctor Manette is a main character in the story. He was a well-respected doctor that fell into trouble among nobility before the time of the story. The nobles put Manette in a prison for eighteen years. These years of solitary confinement drive him crazy. His only comfort in the dark are his tools and workbench that his uses to make imaginary shoes. During these years Manette has no sense of time or anything.

There are many conflicts in this story and one of these is Sydney Carton's conflict with his past and outer self. In his past he was a drunk and led a miserable life. As a lawyer, Carton had a chance at a good life, but ruined it with alcohol. This made it very difficult for him when he fell in love with Lucie. Carton knew that he was unworthy of such a woman, or any woman at all. The plan to save Darney gave Carton a chance to overcome his past and allow people to remember him as something better than a drunk. This showed that Carton had a loving and heroic inner self that anyone can respect.

Chesterton, G.K., AThe Last of the Great Men.@ Rev. ed. Viking, 1977.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. New York, New York: The New American Library of World Literature, Incl., 1936.

ine Hogarth in 1836, his first work printed in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. This was the beginning of his career.

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Approximate Word count = 2010
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)