# A Tale of Two Cities — Character guide

> Key figures in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

- [Mr. Jarvis Lorry](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/jarvis_lorry.md): Lorry is the trusted London agent dispatched to Dover and then Paris on Tellson's business, a man so identified with the bank that he speaks of himself in the plural and calls his work 'business.' His guarded, methodical
- [Charles Darnay](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/charles_darnay.md): Darnay lives in London as a teacher of French, having turned his back on the Evrémonde name and the cruelties attached to it. He loves Lucie from the moment she testifies at his treason trial, but hesitates to speak, wei
- [Sydney Carton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/sydney_carton.md): Carton works as Stryver's silent legal mind, a man whose talents are wasted on drink and whose chief occupation is despising himself. He loves Lucie with a hopeless clarity, telling her plainly that he would only drag he
- [Lucie Manette](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/lucie_manette.md): Lucie is the emotional center of the novel, the 'golden thread' who reunites with her long-imprisoned father and restores him to himself. She marries Charles Darnay and builds a quiet, orderly household in Soho, but when
- [Doctor Manette](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/doctor_manette.md): Manette was 'recalled to life' from the Bastille, a shoemaker by compulsion whose mind still retreats to his prison bench in moments of stress. Restored to energy and purpose in London, he becomes a respected physician a
- [Madame Defarge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/madame_defarge.md): Madame Defarge sits in the Saint Antoine wine-shop, knitting names into a pattern only she can read, and when the Revolution comes she becomes one of its most pitiless agents. She tells Lucie that 'the daughter of your f
- [Monsieur Defarge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/monsieur_defarge.md): Defarge runs a squalid Saint-Antoine shop that doubles as the nerve-center of a revolutionary cell, and he is the one who once retrieved a broken shoemaker from the Bastille's shadow. He moves with a publican's ease but 
- [Miss Pross](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/miss_pross.md): Miss Pross keeps house in Soho with a fierce, comic possessiveness, treating Lucie's suitors as trespassers and her father as a sacred trust. Her one soft spot is a feckless brother, Solomon, whose reappearance under ano
- [Mr. Cruncher](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/mr_cruncher.md): Cruncher ferries errands and secrets between London and Soho, grumbling about his wife's 'flopping' prayers while slipping out at odd hours with a crowbar and a sack. He recognizes Solomon Pross in a Paris wine-shop and 
- [Mr. Stryver](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/mr_stryver.md): Stryver bullies his way through the Old Bailey and the Temple, dragging Carton behind him like a towed boat, and grows rich on verdicts his jackal actually won. Encouraged by a courtroom triumph, he decides to marry Luci
- [Monseigneur](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/monseigneur.md): The Marquis St. Evrémonde glides through Paris in a gilded coach, tossing a coin to a grieving father as if grief were a toll. He is uncle to Charles Darnay, who has renounced the family name and its cruelties, and the t
- [Mr. Barsad](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/mr_barsad.md): Barsad testifies against Charles Darnay at the Old Bailey as a hired witness, then resurfaces in Paris as a jailer and spy — and as Miss Pross's long-lost brother Solomon. Madame Defarge records his description in her kn
- [Young Jerry](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/young_jerry.md): The curious son of Mr. Cruncher who follows his father's night work.
- [Jacques](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/jacques.md): A collective name for the revolutionary conspirators in Saint Antoine.
- [Monsieur Gabelle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/monsieur_gabelle.md): The tax collector for the Evrémonde estate who is imprisoned during the Revolution.
- [The Vengeance](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/the_vengeance.md): A fierce female revolutionary and companion to Madame Defarge.
- [Roger Cly](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/roger_cly.md): A spy who fakes his own death to escape England.
- [Gaspard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/gaspard.md): A peasant whose child is killed by the Marquis's carriage.
- [Mrs. Cruncher](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters/mrs_cruncher.md): The pious and long-suffering wife of Mr. Cruncher.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tale_of_two_cities_se/characters