After his release from 17 years of solitary confinement in the Bastille, Dr. Manette is reunited with his daughter Lucie, whom he has never met. The doctor’s old banker friend Jarvis Lorry has taken care of his estate, and his daughter Lucie has been cared for by Miss Pross for the past 17 years.

On the family’s trip back from France to England, Lucie meets and falls in love with a French gentleman Charles Darnay. Unknown to them both, it was Darnay’s uncle the Marquis St. Evremonde who had imprisoned her father all those years ago.

Upon arrival in England - Darnay is accused of treason, a set-up by his evil uncle the Marquis through the spy John Barsad. At Darnay’s trial, he is rescued by the efforts of the brilliant, but drunken lawyer, Sydney Carton. Carton, is a lost soul full of self-loathing and incapable of directing his own life to happiness, he appears to have feelings for Lucie, but cannot shake his own self-doubt to act.

Ultimately Darnay wins Lucie, while Carton never stops loving her. He remains a close friend to them both, and comes to love their daughter, Little Lucie, with a special tenderness.

We learn throughout the telling of this story, of the continuing cruelty of the French aristocracy, and the growing desire for revenge. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Madame DeFarge and her husband Ernest DeFarge are leaders of the revolution. Madame, who has her own secret to reveal, plots to catch Charles Darnay upon his return to Paris, where he is promptly arrested.

Lucie and her father Dr. Manette arrive in Paris to rescue Charles Darnay. But at Darnay’s trial in France, it is Madame DeFarge who has the last word and Darnay is sent away to the Bastille to await his death at the guillotine.

A short time later Sydney Carton arrives in Paris and has a plan to help free Charles Darnay, but he must get Lucie and her family safely out of France as soon as possible. Carton, gains access to meet Darnay at the prison through his old acquaintance the spy John Barsad.

While at the prison, Carton meets a young Seamstress who has been sentenced to death. Carton shares his feelings with the Seamstress about his love for the Manette family…and it is here that he utters the most famous words ever written…