It is 1755 and France and England are both brutish and violent. France in particular is ripe for revolution. Jarvis Lorry, an agent for Tellson's Bank in London, is en route for Paris and meets the beautiful, French- born Lucie Manette and her loyal maid Miss Pross in an inn at Dover to reveal that her father, whom she thinks long dead, is in fact alive and has just been released from the Bastille after eighteen years. They are on their way to meet him. In Paris Lorry and Lucie are shown to the squalid garret in which Dr. Manette is lodging by M. Defarge, who runs a wine-shop with his haughty, suspicious, ever- knitting wife Mme. Defarge. Manette is dazed and does not recognise his visitors, concentrating instead on the shoes that he is making. They take him back to England.
Five years later in London we meet Jerry Cruncher, odd-job man at Tellson's and (by night) robber of bodies for dissection. He lives with his very religious wife Mrs. Cruncher and their son Young Jerry in a dirty flat. Young Jerry is his father's assistant in his official occupation. Jerry is sent to the Old Bailey with a note for Lorry and watches the trial of a handsome young Frenchman called Charles Darnay, accused of spying for France. Lorry and the Manettes are also present. Darnay is acquitted when his lawyer, Mr. Stryver, points out that identification is uncertain. To illustrate his point he draws attention to the similarity in appearance between Darnay and a young lawyer in court, Sidney Carton.
Carton is a louche, arrogant young man who could have a brilliant career but seems instead to be content to do tedious work for the older, harder-working Stryver. Carton and Darnay visit the Manettes at home in Soho, where they live happily now that Dr. Manette has recovered his wits after his long imprisonment (to which he never refers). He is, however, prone to deep depressions from which only Lucie can rouse him, and still keeps his shoe-making equipment. The action shifts to France, where Darnay's uncle, the Marquis St. Evremonde, runs over and kills the child of a peasant. He is observed by the Defarges but is unapologetic. Darnay visits his chateau that evening, and we learn that there is no love lost between them. The following morning the Marquis is found murdered, stabbed through the heart in his bed.
A year later Charles Darnay is comfortably established in England as a French tutor. Visiting Dr. Manette, he confesses his love for Lucie. This accepted, he tries to tell Dr. Manette his real name and the purpose of his stay in England, but the Doctor stops him, only wishing to know his secrets when he is married. Carton is also in love with Lucie and visits her to pledge that he will make any sacrifice for her. Meanwhile in France the revolutionaries are gathering momentum. A secret society known as the 'Jacques' meets at the Defarges' wine shop and decides to destroy the Marquis's chateau in due course. A spy named John Barsad comes to the shop and informs the Defarges that Lucie Manette is to marry Darnay, nephew of the murdered Marquis. Despite his great happiness at their marriage, Dr. Manette is still prone to relapses into his former state, characterised by shoe-making and complete subsequent forgetfulness. Lorry encourages Manette to join the newlyweds on their honeymoon and in his absence he destroys the workbench with Miss Pross's assistance.
In time Lucie and Darnay have two children, a daughter also named Lucie and a son who dies young. Carton occasionally visits the happy family and is popular with little Lucie. One night in 1789 Lorry arrives at Dr. Manette's to say that there is great unrest in Paris. The Defarges are commanding the revolutionaries, who storm the Bastille. Once there Defarge rushes to Manette's former cell. Having thoroughly searched it, it is torched. Mme. Defarge decapitates the governor of the Bastille and the mob surges through the city. Sure enough, the Marquis's old chateau is torched.
Three years later, Tellson's has become one of the meeting points for exiled Frenchmen. A letter is delivered there addressed to 'The Marquis St. Evremonde', which Darnay (mindful of his promise to Dr. Manette) undertakes to deliver. When he reads it he resolves to go to France; it is a plea for help from his loyal old servant Gabelle, a prisoner of the revolutionaries. No sooner does he arrive in Paris than Defarge, recognising him as Lucie's husband, imprisons him. Lorry learns of this when he is visited by Manette and Lucie in the Paris branch of Tellson's. As they speak the mob rushes into the courtyard and begin to sharpen their weapons. Realising that time is of the essence if they are to save Darnay, Manette speaks to the mob (with whom he is popular as an ex-prisoner of the Bastille) and is led off.
In due course Lucie receives a short note from Darnay saying that he is well, but the Defarges (who deliver it) make her very uneasy.
Manette returns having failed to secure Darnay's release. Time passes and he becomes doctor to three prisons, including Darnay's. The king and queen have been executed and it is a year and three months since Darnay's imprisonment. When he is tried at long last, he defends himself spiritedly and is released to great cheers. That evening as the reunited family sit in front of the fire, Darnay is rearrested and told that he has to appear before the tribunal again the next day. The arresting party explain that new evidence is to be presented by three people- the Defarges and another whose identity is to remain secret until the trial. Meanwhile, out shopping and unaware of the drama at home, Cruncher and Miss Pross enter a wine-shop where she recognises her brother Solomon, whom she has not seen for years. He is not pleased at this, and Jerry recognises him as one of the Old Bailey spies. They are joined by Carton, who reveals that Solomon is in fact John Barsad. Solomon is marched to Lorry's rooms and Carton accuses him of having been plotting the day before (when he overheard them) with a man who looks oddly similar to Roger Cly, a fellow Old Bailey spy who is supposed to be dead and buried. He denies this but Jerry pipes up to contradict him, to general amazement. He refuses to say how he knows this to be the case - it is in fact because Jerry has already attempted to rob Cly's coffin and found it empty.
Sidney attempts to comfort Lorry, who is sure that all is lost, and buys some small packets from a chemist. The following morning he goes to the trial where he sees Darnay charged with being an aristocrat on the evidence of the Defarges and Dr. Manette, who tries to protest but is silenced. Monsieur Defarge tells how when he searched Manette's cell in the Bastille he found a paper written by him, which is read to the court. It describes the misdeeds of the previous Marquis (including killing Madame Defarge's older sister) and names Darnay as his successor. To great approval, Darnay is sentenced to death. The family is devastated. He asks Manette to exert himself on Darnay's behalf and idly goes to the Defarges' wine-shop, where his close resemblance to Darnay is noticed. That evening Dr. Manette suffers a relapse and becomes insensible. Carton realises that it is up to him to save Darnay, and gives Lorry his certificate for safe conduct from France, to put with those of Manette, Lucie and her daughter. He instructs Lorry to organise a carriage for them for the next day, without fail.
At about 1 a.m. Carton visits him. He prevails upon Darnay to swap clothes and to write a letter that he dictates. It is to Lucie and states the fulfilment of his earlier promise of sacrifice for her. As Charles writes, Carton drugs him and he collapses. Barsad enters the cell and Carton promises not to betray him. Darnay is carried away, supposedly prostrated with grief, and Carton joins the line of condemned prisoners. Meanwhile, Manette, Lorry, Lucie, her daughter and Darnay (thought to be Carton) are leaving France as quickly as they can. Mme. Defarge determines to kill Lucie and her daughter, and rushes to their lodgings, where she finds only Miss Pross, who is to follow Lorry and the others with Cruncher. In the ensuing struggle Mme. Defarge's gun goes off, deafening Miss Pross and killing her. As she leaves the city with Cruncher she hears the rumbling carts bound for the guillotine and the novel ends with Carton reflecting that 'it is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done'.