Book the First: CHAPTER I. The Period

Summary

• The novel takes place in England and France in 1775
• The age is marked by competing and contradictory attitudes, and resembles the present period in which Dickens wrote
• England is marked by religious prophecies, popular paranormal phenomena, and messages from a colony of British subjects in America to King George III
• France witnesses excessive spending and extreme violence, which anticipates the guillotine
• England also has issues with crime and capital punishment