A Tale of Two Cities is my favorite Dickens book.
For further fictional insights, try The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. Even the movie version with Leslie Howard and Raymond Massey is quite well done.
If you're into classical music, check out Dialogues of the Carmelites, by Francis Poulenc. This 1959 opera is a bit of a snore and rather static, but the final scene where the nuns of the convent at Compiegne go to the guillotine is one of the finest scenes in all opera. The chorus shrinks nun by nun until we're down to one nun singing. Then she falls to the blade.