Our Novel: A Tale of Two Cities

 

Our book for 2025-2026 will be A Tale of Two Cities.

 

From April 30 through November 26, 1859, the novel appeared in weekly installments in the magazine All the Year Round, a periodical edited by Dickens himself. Each month, the various weekly chapters were sold again with the addition of two illustrations by Dickens's long-time collaborator Hablot Knight Browne, better known as Phiz.

 

Other books published in 1859 included On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, Adam Bede by George Elliot, and On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. After A Tale of Two Cities completed its run, readers could continue their exciting weekly adventures by reading The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, which debuted serially in All the Year Round right after the final chapter of A Tale of Two Cities.  

   

The Penguin edition contains all of the illustrations and is recommended, but not required. Please join us for a year-long study of one of Dickens's most celebrated works.

 

 

Past novels:

2024-2025: Sketches by Boz

2023-2024: Little Dorrit

2022-2023: Oliver Twist

2021-2022: Martin Chuzzlewit

2020-2021: David Copperfield

2019-2020: The Old Curiosity Shop

2018-2019: Dombey and Son

2017-2018: Barnaby Rudge

2016-2017: Great Expectations

2015-2016: Our Mutual Friend

2014-2015: Nicholas Nickleby (Part Two)

2013-2014: Nicholas Nickleby (Part One)

2012-2013: Bleak House (Part Two)

2011-2012: Bleak House (Part One)

2010-2011: A Tale of Two Cities

2009-2010: Pickwick Papers

2008-2009American Notes and Hunted Down (short story collection)

2007-2008: Hard Times and The Mystery of Edwin Drood

2006-2007: Little Dorrit

2005-2006: Oliver Twist

2004-2005: David Copperfield

2003-2004: Martin Chuzzlewit

2002-2003: Barnaby Rudge

2001-2002: The Old Curiosity Shop

2000-2001: Nicholas Nickleby (Part Two)

1999-2000: Nicholas Nickleby (Part One)

1998-1999: Dombey and Son

1997-1998: Pickwick Papers

1996-1997: Our Mutual Friend

1995-1996: Great Expectations

1994-1995: A Tale of Two Cities

1993-1994: Bleak House