Morose, cynical and given to drink, Sydney Carton is one of Charles Dickens' most famous characters; a dispassionate man, yet capable, in the final moments of 'A Tale Of Two Cities', of sacrificing himself beneath the guillotine for Lucy, the woman he both loved and lost.

It now appears, however, that Dickens was being somewhat economical with the actualitE. Newly recovered documents, written in Carton's own hand, tell a far different tale. Sydney Carton survived his execution, only to find himself at the mercy of the monstrous Robespierre, author of the Paris Terror. His love Lucy...

'The seven Christians stood together in the bright sunlight, bound with strong ropes, singing a hymn to their foreign Saviour as the spearmen advanced. Around them a crowd of jostling men, women and children, over sixty thousand strong... cheered enthusiastically as the spears were driven home and, one by one, the men and women fell and writhed on the sandy ground, their hymn fading slowly into silence, replaced by the groans and shrieks of the dying. Above the still-squirming bodies, on a ridge, a score of crosses stood in mute witness, carrying their ghastly burdens, some of whom still...