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
2008-2009: American 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
