‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….' What the Dickens does it mean?
On April 30, 1859, All the Year Round, a London-based literary journal edited by Charles Dickens, published the opening installment of a new serialised story, A Tale of Two Cities. Its first sentence – paradoxical and poetic – would go on to become one of the most iconic opening lines in the world. The line, which was first published 166 years ago, might as well have been written yesterday with the way it continues to capture the zeitgeist.
In a handful of lines, Dickens captures the irrefutable truth that progress and regression, and peace and violence often walk hand in hand. The novel, which juxtaposes the two European cultural capitals: London and Paris, contrasts 'a time of chaos, conflicts, and despair' with 'happiness and hope'. For some, a revolution of any sort, political or technological, can be a 'spring of hope,' for others, it could be the 'winter of despair.' Dickens insists that these realities can, and do, coexist.
Why was it both the best and worst of times?
Though A Tale of Two Cities is set during the French Revolution (1787-1799), Dickens was writing as much about his own Victorian England as 18th-century France. He writes of the late 18th century, when political oppression in France gave way to revolutionary violence. In Dickens' own Victorian England—riddled with inequality, industrial unrest, and fears of upheaval—he found echoes of the same tensions that had been the precursor to the French Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution in England (1760–1840) had brought about sweeping changes—technological advances paired with immense social and economic suffering. In both movements, the wealthy elite lived in comfort, while laborers toiled in inhumane conditions, working long hours for minimal pay in crowded, unsanitary environments. In both centuries, Dickens saw a society defined by the paradox he lays down in the opening lines of the novel—prosperity shadowed by poverty, innovation accompanied by inequality.
'It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness… It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…,' Dickens wrote, capturing the turbulence of the era and his own ambivalence about progress, revolution, and humanity itself.
Dickens vividly describes how the French Revolution transformed from righteous rebellion into a Reign of Terror. While the overthrow of the aristocracy is portrayed with sympathy, the bloodlust of the revolutionary mobs—embodied in characters like Madame Defarge—exposes the darker side of humanity. Dickens' opening lines capture the complexity of an age where guillotines shadowed the lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Why does the opening continue to resonate?
In 2025, we live in a world of extremes: rapid technological advancement beside global inequality; astonishing wealth beside homelessness; political polarisation amid calls for unity; a pacifist society in an age of war. In many ways, it is again the best and worst of times. We, too, live in an age that feels both enlightened and misled, compassionate yet cruel.
Those timeless words – 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times' – could well be a mirror held up to every age, including our own.
('Drawing a Line' is a limited, eight-week series exploring the stories behind literature's most iconic opening lines. Each column offers interpretation, not definitive analysis—because great lines, like great books, invite many readings.)
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