The one great heroic character to be found in the works of Charles Dickens is Sydney Carton, the cultivated wastrel in the strongly dramatic book, 'A Tale of Two Cities' (1859). As the double of the aristocrat Charles Darnay, the Englishman sacrificed himself under the guillotine on behalf of his rival in love. It is not often realized that there is a peculiar and, in part, causal link between the country of New Zealand and the personality of this fictional hero.