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A Tale of Two Cities is Dickens's twelfth novel and was published weekly in All the Year Round in 1859. Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'), did not illustrate the weekly parts, but he did provide the illustrations to the monthly instalments. It was to be the last time Browne would work with Dickens. Whether the reasons are Dickens losing interest in his books being illustrated, a decline in the quality of Browne's illustrations, or something more personal, Browne struggled to make sense of it. He wrote to his friend Robert Young: 'I have been a "good boy", I believe. The plates in hand are all in good time, so that I do not know what's "up", any more than you.  Dickens probably thinks a new hand would give his old puppets a fresh look, or perhaps he does not like my illustrating.' A Tale of Two Cities thus ends the hugely successful twenty three year creative collaboration between Charles Dickens and Hablot Knight Browne. The illustrations below are taken from the 'Authentic Edition' of Dickens's works (1901-1906) and reproduce Browne's original illustrations, with a coloured frontispiece.

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