In which novel does the character Sydney Carton appear?

Sydney Carton appears in Charles Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities. He is an English barrister whose wasted potential and self-loathing contrast with his eventual act of extraordinary sacrifice.

Carton resembles Charles Darnay closely enough to exchange places with him. He loves Lucie Manette, although she marries Darnay, and his feelings help awaken a sense of purpose beneath his cynicism and dependence on alcohol. When Darnay is imprisoned during the French Revolution, Carton enters the prison, changes clothes with him, and takes his place at the guillotine.

The novel was published in 1859 and moves between London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. Its famous closing image presents Carton’s death as a moral transformation, captured in the line about doing “a far, far better thing.”

Readers sometimes confuse Carton with Darnay because the two men look alike and both love Lucie. They are distinct characters: Darnay survives, while Carton gives his life to save him.