The orphaned Pip is serving as a blackmith's apprentice when an unknown benefactor supplies the means for him to be educated in London as a gentleman of "great expectations."

A Tale of Two Cities: The "two cities" are Paris in the time of the French Revolution, and London. Dr. Manette, a French physician, having been called in to treat a young peasant and his sister, realizes that they have been cruelly abused by the Marquis de St. Evremonde and his brother. To ensure Dr. Manette's silence, the Marquis has him confined for eighteen years in the Bastille. The doctor has just been released, demented, when the story opens....