Headnote vignette (the imprisoned Charles Darnay) for Book III, Chapter 13 ("Fifty-two").

John McLenan

The twenty-ninth instalment of the novel appeared in Harper's Weekly (19 November 1859): 748-50; it had originally appeared in the UK on Saturday, 12 November, in All the Year Round.

The chapter title refers to the number of victims (aristocrats and sympathizers of the Old Regime) who shortly will be beheaded: Charles Darnay is to be one of that consignment. Shortly after noon on the day of his execution Sydney Carton arrives.

Passage Illustrated: Carton to the Rescue

Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. In every line of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his condemnation. He had fully comprehended that no personal influence could possibly save him, that he was virtually sentenced by the millions, and that units could avail him nothing. [Book the Third — "The Track of a Storm," Chapter XIII, "Fifty-two," 749]

Other Illustrated Editions (1859-1910)

• Hablot K. Brown or 'Phiz' (16 illustrations, 1859)
• Sol Eytinge, Junior (8 illustrations, 1867)
• Fred Barnard (25 illustrations, 1874)
• A. A. Dixon (12 illustrations, 1905)
• Harry Furniss (32 illustrations, 1910)

Related Material

• John McLenan's Thirty-One Headnote Vignettes for A Tale of Two Cities in Harper's Weekly (7 May — 3 December 1859)
• Phiz's July 1859 Plates for Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities
• French Revolution
• Victorian Images of the French Revolution
• "A Tale of Two Cities (1859): A Model of the Integration of History and Literature"

Scanned image by Philip V. Allingham; text by PVA and George P. Landow. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates." Dickens Studies. 33 (2003): 109-158.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, 7 May through 3 December 1859.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities: A story of the French Revolution. Project Gutenberg e-text by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. Release Date: September 25, 2004 [EBook #98].

Guiliano, Edward, and Philip Collins. The Annotated Dickens. 2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986.

Sanders, Andrew. A Companion to "A Tale of Two Cities." The Dickens Companion Series, Vol. 4. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.

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Created 25 November 2007

Last modified 28 November 2025