Based on the first edition, Hard Times is informatively annotated with a lively introduction and helpful notes on cultural references, social and political mores, literary allusions, and unfamiliar word usage. In addition to a chronology coordinating Dickens' life with key historical events, the editors explore the political, economical, educational, and social state of England in the 1830s and…
After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of 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 roads of London, they …