Which Charles Dickens novel opens with the line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"?

The Charles Dickens novel that opens with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” is A Tale of Two Cities.

Dickens uses the famous opening to present a world of sharp contradictions: wisdom and foolishness, belief and doubt, light and darkness, hope and despair. The repeated opposites establish the novel’s central concern with divided societies and people living through political and moral upheaval.

Published in 1859, the historical novel is set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. Its story follows Lucie Manette, her father Dr. Alexandre Manette, Charles Darnay, and Sydney Carton. The plot explores imprisonment, inherited guilt, revolution, sacrifice, and personal redemption. Dr. Manette’s 18-year detention in the Bastille connects the private lives of the characters to the larger crisis in France.

A common mix-up is confusing the novel with Dickens’s other major works. Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield are also Dickens novels, but none begins with this sentence. The novel’s closing line, “It is a far, far better thing,” is nearly as famous as its opening.