110 Fun Facts About A Tale of Two Cities

How is the cruel Marquis St. Evrémonde related to Charles Darnay?

His uncle: the Marquis is the twin brother of Darnay's late father, and over supper at the château the nephew renounces the family's property and France itself, hours before the Marquis is found dead.

Which novel did Dickens publish next after A Tale of Two Cities?

Great Expectations began in December 1860 in his own weekly: a serial by Charles Lever was losing readers, so Dickens stepped in with his own story to revive sales.

How does the famous first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities begin?

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times' opens one long sentence of paired opposites that ends by saying the period was, in short, much like the present.

After eighteen years in the Bastille, what does Dr Manette give as his name?

One Hundred and Five, North Tower was his cell: asked his name, the white-haired prisoner can give nothing else, and it is to that cell that Defarge has himself led when the Bastille falls.

What cryptic message does Jarvis Lorry send back with Jerry Cruncher at the start of A Tale of Two Cities?

Recalled to Life is all the credential Lorry carries: he tells Lucie the errand to fetch her father is so secret that he has no paper referring to it, only that one line, 'which may mean anything'.

Jarvis Lorry and the messenger Jerry Cruncher work for which London bank?

Tellson's, beside Temple Bar, is small, dark and ugly, and its partners are proud of it: any one of them would have disinherited a son who proposed rebuilding the place.

What craft does Dr Manette practise obsessively in his garret after his release?

Shoemaking kept Dr Manette sane in his cell; after a nine-day relapse in London, Lorry hacks the bench to pieces while Miss Pross holds the candle, and they burn the wood and bury the tools.

What business do Ernest and Thérèse Defarge run in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine?

A wine shop: when a cask shatters outside it, the starving street scoops the spill from the gutter, and one man dips a finger in the dregs to write BLOOD on a wall.

On what charge is Charles Darnay tried in London in 1780?

Treason against the Crown meant being hanged, drawn and quartered, which is why the courtroom is packed: Darnay is accused of passing lists of British forces to the French king.

How does Darnay's lawyer discredit the witness who places him in a dockyard town?

He points out Carton's likeness: a note from Carton prompts Stryver to ask the unnamed witness whether he could mistake the prisoner for the barrister sitting nearby, and the certainty collapses.

What does the Marquis St. Evrémonde do after his carriage kills a child in Paris?

He tosses out a gold coin, scolds the crowd for not minding their children and his horses, and when a coin is flung back into the carriage says he would gladly crush whoever threw it under the wheels.

Whose family name, D'Aulnais, does Charles Darnay adapt into his English surname?

His mother: she had begged her son to atone for the family's wrongs, so he drops the Evrémonde name and title, crosses to England and earns his own living there.

Who kills the Marquis St. Evrémonde in his bed?

Gaspard, whose child died under the Marquis's carriage wheels, stabs him in his château; caught months later, he is hanged on a gallows forty feet high above the village fountain, poisoning its water.

What note is left with the knife that kills the Marquis St. Evrémonde?

'Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques' is scrawled on a paper frill round the knife's hilt, turning the reckless speed of the Marquis's carriage, which had killed a child, back on him.

What pet name does the governess Miss Pross use for Lucie?

Ladybird is so jealously guarded by Miss Pross that she complains 'hundreds of people' come courting her pet, though only two callers turn up that evening.

What is Jerry Cruncher's secret night-time occupation?

Resurrection Man, or body-snatcher: Jerry calls his night work 'going fishing', digging up fresh graves for sale to doctors, which is why his fingers are always rusty and his boots muddy.

What does Jerry Cruncher accuse his wife of doing to ruin his luck?

Praying: Jerry calls it 'flopping' and is sure her prayers work against his trade, so when he wakes to find her on her knees he throws a muddy boot at her.

What is the title of Book the Second of A Tale of Two Cities?

The Golden Thread is Lucie: the narrator calls her the golden thread uniting her father to a past before his misery and a present beyond it, since only she can charm away his dark moods.

What nickname does Dickens give Sydney Carton because of his deference to the barrister Stryver?

The Jackal does the real legal work: night after night Carton, wet towels wrapped round his head, boils down the briefs that Stryver, the 'lion', will argue in court next day.

Whom does the ambitious barrister Stryver end up marrying after talking himself out of proposing to Lucie?

A rich widow with three sons becomes Mrs Stryver; he then tells her that Lucie had once tried to 'catch' him and that only his own cleverness kept him from being caught.

What does Darnay reveal to Dr Manette on the morning of his wedding to Lucie?

His real name and lineage, told as he had promised, leave Dr Manette deadly pale; once the couple drive off he slips back into his old prison habit for nine days, a relapse kept from Lucie.

In which month and year do the Defarges help lead the storming of the Bastille in A Tale of Two Cities?

July 1789: as the Bastille falls, Defarge seizes a turnkey and makes him lead the way to Dr Manette's old cell, which he searches inch by inch before burning its contents.

Whose pleading letter lures Darnay back to Paris in 1792?

Gabelle the tax collector writes from the Abbaye prison, jailed for having served the Evrémonde estate; Darnay feels bound in honour to answer, and slips away to France without telling his family.

In which Paris prison is Darnay first held, for fifteen months, after returning to France?

La Force holds Darnay 'in secret' for fifteen months; Dr Manette, honoured by the mob as a former Bastille prisoner, uses that standing to keep his son-in-law alive through the prison massacres.

Who turns out to be Miss Pross's long-lost brother Solomon?

John Barsad is unmasked when Miss Pross, out shopping in Paris, screams at the sight of her brother; Carton, who knew him as a London trial witness, uses the discovery to force his help.

How does the Bastille manuscript read out at Darnay's retrial conclude?

Denouncing the Evrémondes and all their descendants 'to the last of their race' was Dr Manette's own curse, scratched in soot and blood in his cell; read out in court, it condemns his son-in-law.

What is the source of Madame Defarge's hatred of the Evrémondes?

They raped her sister and killed her brother: the Evrémonde twins called in Dr Manette to treat their victims, then jailed him to keep him quiet, while the youngest girl was hidden away and grew up to be Madame Defarge.

What does Madame Defarge secretly encode in her knitting?

The names of people to be killed go into her knitted register in her own stitches and symbols; when a government spy calls at the shop, she knits in his name while chatting to him.

How does Madame Defarge die?

Her own pistol fires as she fights Miss Pross, who has barred the door to hide the family's escape; the shot kills Madame Defarge and leaves Miss Pross deaf for the rest of her life.

What is the name of Madame Defarge's lieutenant and shadow?

The Vengeance, a grocer's plump wife, saves her friend a chair by the guillotine and cries her name in vain as the tumbrils unload, unaware that Madame Defarge already lies dead.

How does Carton get Darnay out of the condemned cell?

He drugs him and swaps places: Carton buys the drugs from a Paris chemist before the trial is even lost, has Darnay write a letter at his dictation, then overpowers him and has him carried out as a visitor overcome by the parting.

Who holds Carton's hand on the tumbril ride to the guillotine?

A young seamstress, condemned for plots she cannot understand, sees that he is a stranger and asks to hold his 'brave hand'; they kiss before she goes to the blade, just ahead of him.

How does Sydney Carton's famous closing line begin?

'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done' is never actually spoken: the narrator gives it as what Carton would have said had he given his thoughts any utterance.

In the closing vision, what does Carton foresee the son who bears his name becoming?

A judge: Carton, who wasted his own gifts at the bar, sees the boy rise in 'that path of life which once was mine' until the name they share is made illustrious and its blots fade away.

Which wild revolutionary dance terrifies Lucie as she waits outside her husband's prison?

The Carmagnole sweeps past Lucie at the spot where Darnay might glimpse her from his window: hundreds of people, a wood-sawyer in their midst, dance it, the narrator says, like a gnashing of teeth in unison.

In which periodical did Dickens serialise A Tale of Two Cities in 31 weekly instalments?

All the Year Round was launched on the back of the novel: its opening chapters led the very first issue on 30 April 1859, and the new weekly soon sold roughly triple what its predecessor had.

Which periodical, edited by Dickens through the 1850s, did he close after quarrelling with its publishers?

Household Words was wound up in 1859 after its publishers, Bradbury and Evans, declined to print Dickens's statement about his separation in their comic paper Punch; he replaced it with a weekly under his own control.

Which Wilkie Collins play, in which Dickens acted, inspired the love triangle of A Tale of Two Cities?

The Frozen Deep gave Dickens the role of Richard Wardour, who dies saving his rival for the woman they both love; his preface says the main idea of the novel came to him while he was acting in it.

Which Watts Phillips play, sharing the setting and climax of A Tale of Two Cities, led to talk of plagiarism?

The Dead Heart reached the Adelphi stage in 1859, hurried on once the novel began to appear; Dickens had met the play two years earlier, when its manager shared it with friends, hence the whispers of plagiarism.

Which historian's The French Revolution: A History does Dickens praise in his preface to A Tale of Two Cities?

Thomas Carlyle was a close friend whose history supplied the novel's background; the preface hopes only to add to the popular picture of the time, since no one could add to the philosophy of 'Mr Carlyle's wonderful book'.

To which Whig prime minister did Dickens dedicate A Tale of Two Cities?

Lord John Russell received the dedication 'in remembrance of many public services and private kindnesses'; Dickens later said there was no man in England he respected more in public or loved more in private.

Besides A Tale of Two Cities, which is Dickens's only other historical novel?

Barnaby Rudge had already shown Dickens a mob storming a prison: its rioters burn Newgate during London's anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780, the very year in which Darnay stands trial.

Lucie Manette may reflect Dickens's relationship with which young actress?

Ellen Ternan was 18 when Dickens, 45, hired her for a play he was staging in 1857; he fell in love and later left his wife, and Lucie is said to resemble her.

What happens to the Evrémonde château soon after the Bastille falls?

Peasants burn it down in the chapter 'Fire Rises': a rider begs the local garrison for help, but the officers only shrug that 'it must burn', and the village lights its windows in celebration.

Research suggests which London house was the model for Dr Manette and Lucie's home?

1 Greek Street, Soho, became the home of the House of St Barnabas charity in 1862, and Rose Street beside it was later renamed Manette Street after Dickens's doctor.

Who played Sydney Carton in the 1935 MGM film, which was nominated for Best Picture?

Ronald Colman shaved off his familiar moustache to play Carton, and agreed to star only on condition that he play no second role in the film: The Masquerader had left him with a dread of dual roles.

Who played Carton in the 1958 British film directed by Ralph Thomas?

Dirk Bogarde played Carton opposite Dorothy Tutin, with Christopher Lee and Donald Pleasence in support; he later regretted that the film had been shot in black and white rather than colour.

Which 2012 superhero film drew on A Tale of Two Cities and quotes Carton's last words in a eulogy?

The Dark Knight Rises ends with Jim Gordon reading Carton's lines at Bruce Wayne's grave; Christopher Nolan admitted he read the novel for the first time only after his brother's draft script leaned on it.

Which drink takes four richly dressed servants to carry to the lips of the great lord Monseigneur?

Chocolate: one man carries the pot, a second mills and froths it, a third presents the napkin and a fourth pours, and the narrator adds that Monseigneur would have died of shame with only two.

Who starred as Sydney Carton in a US radio adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities broadcast in July 1938?

Orson Welles played two roles when his Mercury Theatre on the Air staged the novel: the announcer introduced him as both Dr Manette and Sydney Carton.

What does Sydney Carton ask of Charles Darnay when the newlyweds come home?

Permission to visit as a friend: Carton asks to be tolerated like a useless piece of furniture, and when Darnay later speaks of him lightly, Lucie begs her husband to be generous with him always and lenient on his faults.

How does Charles Darnay earn his living in England after renouncing his inheritance?

Teaching French: Darnay tutors young men in the language and its literature and translates on the side; the narrator notes that today he would be a professor, but in that age he was simply a tutor.

Which illustrator, Dickens's partner since The Pickwick Papers, never worked for him again after A Tale of Two Cities?

Hablot Browne, known as Phiz, was never told why he was dropped; left to guess, he wrote that Dickens 'probably thinks a new hand would give his old puppets a fresh look'.

The opening chapter of A Tale of Two Cities mentions fateful messages from a congress of British subjects where?

America: the narrator slyly remarks that these messages from the colonists' congress have proved more important to the human race than anything revealed by London's Cock Lane ghost.

Who is the second British spy, alongside John Barsad, who testifies against Darnay in London?

Cly later fakes his own funeral; Cruncher discovers the coffin held only rocks.

In A Tale of Two Cities, what does the coffin hold at a government spy's sham London funeral?

Only rocks: the coffin held paving-stones and earth so that the hated spy could slip out of England alive, and in Paris that secret gives Carton the hold he needs over the man's old partner.

Besides the weekly serial, in what other form did Dickens issue A Tale of Two Cities during 1859?

Monthly parts appeared alongside the weekly from June 1859: the magazine printed no pictures, so it was the monthly numbers that carried the story's plates.

Which screen Sherlock Holmes played the Marquis St. Evrémonde in MGM's 1935 film of A Tale of Two Cities?

Basil Rathbone spent 1935 playing villains, among them Mr Murdstone, Karenin and Pontius Pilate as well as the Marquis; only in 1939 did The Hound of the Baskervilles turn him into Sherlock Holmes.

At which London court does Charles Darnay stand trial for his life in 1780?

The Old Bailey drew paying crowds: the narrator says people bought seats there as they would for a play, and calls it a deadly inn-yard from which travellers set out for the next world.

Which star of The Princess Bride played Sydney Carton in a 1980 television film of A Tale of Two Cities?

Chris Sarandon led the 1980 film opposite Alice Krige's Lucie; it proved Kenneth More's last role, as Parkinson's disease was making it too hard for the veteran star to go on working.

Which Game of Thrones star plays Sydney Carton in the 2026 television series of A Tale of Two Cities?

Kit Harington is also an executive producer of the series, which reached screens in 2026 with the actor François Civil as Charles Darnay.

In A Tale of Two Cities, Monseigneur needs four richly dressed servants to serve him which morning beverage?

Chocolate reaches his lips only after one footman carries the pot, a second froths it, a third offers the napkin and a fourth pours. Dickens uses the ritual to mock a court blind to a starving France.

At Darnay's London trial in A Tale of Two Cities, Lucie recalls his joke that which American might rival the king?

George Washington, Darnay had said in jest, might one day be almost as famous as George the Third. The courtroom treats the joke as heresy, and the bench glares up from its notes.

Which shared code name do Defarge and his fellow revolutionaries call one another in A Tale of Two Cities?

Jacques was the nobles' old scornful name for any peasant, and it gave the peasant rising of 1358 its name, the Jacquerie. Defarge is Jacques Four in his own inner circle.

Which French king is tried and beheaded while Darnay waits in prison in A Tale of Two Cities?

Louis XVI was guillotined in January 1793, ending more than a thousand years of French monarchy. Dickens never names him, writing only that the king was tried, doomed and beheaded.

When a cask breaks in the street in A Tale of Two Cities, which word does a joker scrawl on a wall?

Blood is the word, written with a finger dipped in the muddy dregs the hungry crowd has been scooping from the gutter. Dickens warns that the same stones will be stained again in time.

Darnay's Paris trials in A Tale of Two Cities come during which violent period that ended when Robespierre fell?

The Reign of Terror passed more than 16,000 official death sentences across France before it ended in July 1794. Darnay faces the tribunal in its first winter, after fifteen months in a cell.

Which Hammer horror Dracula played the Marquis St. Evrémonde in the 1958 film of A Tale of Two Cities?

Christopher Lee played the Marquis in the same year that Hammer's Dracula made him a horror star. The film's director later praised the performance as very contained.

What does Madame Defarge pin in her hair in A Tale of Two Cities to warn customers of a spy?

A rose in her head-dress is the signal, and her customers stop talking and drift out the moment she picks it up. The newcomer that day is a paid informer hunting for loose talk.

Charles Darnay's first trial in A Tale of Two Cities is held at which London court?

The Old Bailey of the 1780s was, Dickens writes, a deadly inn-yard from which pale travellers set out for the next world. Londoners paid at the door to watch a trial there as they would a play.

How does Charles Darnay earn his living in England in A Tale of Two Cities, having renounced his family estates?

Teaching French to young men makes him a modest name, though Dickens notes that a later age would have called him a professor. He spends part of his time with undergraduates at Cambridge.

In A Tale of Two Cities, Defarge and the patriots of Saint Antoine wear rough woollen caps of which colour?

Red caps marked the Paris revolutionaries, modelled on the felt cap given to freed slaves in ancient Rome. Dickens's mender of roads trades his blue one for it once the rising begins.

What relation is the murdered Marquis St. Evrémonde to Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities?

His uncle is the twin of Darnay's dead father, and the brothers once shared the family's crimes. Darnay tells him to his face that he renounces both the property and France.

Which weakness has wasted the brilliant legal mind of Sydney Carton when A Tale of Two Cities introduces him?

Drink is his ruin, and Dickens says that what Carton and Stryver put away between two law terms might have floated a king's ship. Carton still does the legal thinking for both of them.

Before Jarvis Lorry tells her the truth in A Tale of Two Cities, young Lucie Manette believes she is what?

An orphan is what she calls herself when she asks the bank for a protector on the road to France. She takes the news that her father lives as a summons to meet his ghost.

What becomes of the Evrémonde château in A Tale of Two Cities once revolution reaches the countryside?

It is burned down by four strangers who close in from the four points of the compass. The soldiers shrug that it must burn, and the villagers light candles in every window.

What lasting injury does Miss Pross carry out of Paris at the close of A Tale of Two Cities?

Deafness falls on her in an instant: after a single crash she never hears another sound, not even the carts of the condemned rumbling past as she escapes with Jerry Cruncher.

In A Tale of Two Cities, what is stuffed into the mouth of Foulon, who told the poor to eat it?

Grass fills his mouth in the novel as the rope breaks twice. The scene follows history: the real Joseph Foullon, a royal finance minister, was lynched in Paris eight days after the Bastille fell.

Jerry Cruncher tells his wife and son in A Tale of Two Cities that his night-time outings are for what?

Fishing is the cover story, and his sharp-eyed son remarks that the rod seems to get rather rusty. Jerry replies that the boy has asked questions enough.

Working through the night on Stryver's cases in A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton wraps what around his head?

Wet towels, steeped in a basin of cold water and wrung out, sit on his head while he boils down the briefs. He gets up to soak them again whenever a point of law turns knotty.

The crowd sharpening blades at a grindstone in A Tale of Two Cities is carrying out which real killings of 1792?

The September Massacres killed more than a thousand prisoners in the jails of Paris within a few days. Dr Manette walks unharmed among the killers because he was once a prisoner of the Bastille himself.

Which wild revolutionary dance sweeps past Lucie in the snow outside Darnay's prison in A Tale of Two Cities?

The Carmagnole was both a song and a street dance of the Paris crowds, and Dickens has some five hundred people whirl through it like demons. The name also covered the short jacket they wore.

When revolution comes in A Tale of Two Cities, the grand lord Monseigneur escapes France disguised in whose clothes?

His cook's dress gets him over the border, a sour joke on the man who once needed four servants at breakfast. Tellson's Paris branch sits in a wing of the mansion he fled.

Where in Dr Manette's old Bastille cell does Defarge find the hidden manuscript in A Tale of Two Cities?

In the chimney, behind a stone that had been worked loose and replaced, the paper lay for more than twenty years. Defarge searched the cell on the day the fortress fell and kept the paper hidden for years.

On the day the Bastille falls in A Tale of Two Cities, whose head does Madame Defarge cut off with her knife?

The governor's neck is under her foot before she uses the knife she has long kept ready. The real governor of the fortress, the Marquis de Launay, was killed and beheaded by the crowd that day.

The former mender of roads in A Tale of Two Cities turns up in Paris doing which job beside Darnay's prison?

Sawing firewood, he calls his saw his little guillotine and lops each log as if it were a head. Madame Defarge later rehearses him to swear that Lucie made signals to the prisoners.

Which sound at the Manettes' quiet corner does Lucie imagine as people entering their lives in A Tale of Two Cities?

Echoing footsteps fill the corner on stormy nights, and Sydney Carton remarks that a whole crowd must be on its way to them. Dickens brings the echoes back as the mob marching on the Bastille.

Which producer, soon to make Gone with the Wind, oversaw MGM's 1935 film of A Tale of Two Cities?

David O. Selznick made it in the same year as his David Copperfield, then left MGM to run his own studio. He wanted one star to play both Carton and Darnay, but the actor refused.

In A Tale of Two Cities, a black flag flies night and day above which Paris landmark?

Notre Dame carries the flag as the new Republic declares for victory or death against the world in arms. Three hundred thousand men, Dickens writes, rise to fight the tyrants of the earth.

In A Tale of Two Cities, the Marquis's killer is hanged forty feet above which village landmark near the château?

The fountain supplies the village's water, and the body is left hanging there to poison it. Dickens links the Marquis to fountains throughout: his carriage kills a child beside one in Paris.

Which grim nickname for the guillotine does Dickens record in A Tale of Two Cities, among jests that it cured headaches?

The National Razor was a real Paris joke of the 1790s, and Dickens adds the quips that it cured headaches and kept hair from turning grey. Models of it were worn in place of the cross.

Stryver recalls that he and Sydney Carton were schoolfellows at which old English school in A Tale of Two Cities?

Shrewsbury is where Carton, by his own account, did the other boys' exercises and seldom his own. Stryver calls him the old seesaw Sydney, up one minute and down the next.

The Dover mail of A Tale of Two Cities opens the story toiling through mud up which slope outside London?

Shooter's Hill, on the old road into Kent, had a name as a haunt of highwaymen, which is why the guard treats every passenger as a robber. The travellers walk beside the coach to spare the horses.

Jarvis Lorry's bank in A Tale of Two Cities stands beside which London gateway once topped with severed heads?

Temple Bar spanned Fleet Street at the edge of the City, and heads were still shown on spikes above it in the 1700s. Dickens says they ogled the bank's letters through its windows.

Dr Manette of A Tale of Two Cities is introduced as a physician formerly of which French cathedral town?

Beauvais is where he was born, as he records in the paper he hides in his cell before naming himself a later resident of Paris. Lucie knows the town's name before she knows her father is alive.

Leaving England in A Tale of Two Cities, Jarvis Lorry asks about the next packet boat to which French port?

Calais was the usual landing for the Dover packet, and Lorry asks about the next sailing the moment he climbs, mud-spattered, out of the night mail. He is told the tide will serve at two the next afternoon.

What happens to Charles Darnay only hours after the Paris tribunal sets him free in A Tale of Two Cities?

He is arrested again that same evening, when four armed men knock at the family's door. They say he has been denounced by the Defarges and by one other, who goes unnamed until the morning.

Under the Republic in A Tale of Two Cities, a decree makes everyone address each other by which title?

Citizen, with citizeness for women, replaced monsieur and madame, and Dickens notes that the habit of the keenest patriots had become law for everybody. Even little Lucie is greeted that way.

In the Bastille chapter of A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens again and again likens the Paris crowd to what?

The sea is his image for the attackers, a living tide that rises wave on wave against the walls. The chapter that follows is titled for the same waters still rising.

The opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities sets 'the spring of hope' against 'the winter of' what?

Despair completes the last of five balanced pairs about the age itself, after which the sentence turns to 'we' and what lay before us. Shakespeare's winter, in Richard III, was one of discontent.

In the first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities, 'the epoch of belief' is paired with 'the epoch of' what?

Incredulity is the mate Dickens chose, an old word for disbelief. He ends the sentence by remarking that the period was, in short, very like his own.

Asked his name in A Tale of Two Cities, Dr Manette replies 'One Hundred and Five' and which two words?

North Tower was the part of the Bastille that held his cell, and the number was all the name he had kept. Defarge shouts the same words at a turnkey years later, on the day the fortress is stormed.

Dining with Darnay after the trial in A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton calls himself 'a disappointed' what?

Drudge is his word, and he adds that he cares for no man on earth and no man cares for him. Left alone, he tells his own reflection that he hates his dinner guest.

What does the Marquis St. Evrémonde tell Darnay is 'the only lasting philosophy' in A Tale of Two Cities?

Repression, he says, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip for as long as his roof shuts out the sky. He is found stabbed in his bed the next morning.

In the final vision of A Tale of Two Cities, Carton sees 'a brilliant people rising from this' what?

Abyss is his word for revolutionary Paris, which he pictures becoming a beautiful city once the evil of the age has worn itself out. Dickens frames the vision as what Carton would have said, had he spoken.

Jerry Cruncher of A Tale of Two Cities defends his secret night work by calling himself an 'honest' what?

Tradesman is the word he clings to from his first night ride, and Dickens makes it a chapter title, The Honest Tradesman. That chapter follows him on one of his secret outings.

In A Tale of Two Cities, which word 'was pushed out of the tall houses' in the washing of Saint Antoine?

Hunger is named again and again in one paragraph, down to the inscription on the baker's shelves of scanty bread. Only the shops selling tools and weapons look prosperous.

The burial-service verse Sydney Carton repeats on his last night walk in A Tale of Two Cities is from which Gospel?

John gives the words to Jesus, spoken to Martha before the raising of Lazarus. Carton first heard them as a young man at his father's funeral, and they return to him at the scaffold.

Jarvis Lorry of A Tale of Two Cities keeps insisting he has no feelings and is merely 'a man of' what?

Business is his shield whenever feeling threatens, and he even calls himself a mere machine. The claim fools nobody, since it was he who brought the infant Lucie across the Channel to England.

Madame Defarge tells her husband in A Tale of Two Cities to 'tell Wind and' what 'where to stop', but not her?

Fire is the second force she names when Defarge pleads that the killing must stop somewhere, short of Lucie and her child. Her two companions, Dickens says, take a horrible enjoyment in her wrath.