The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 1 plus 4 plus 2 plus 3 plus 6 letter word A TALE OF TWO CITIES
I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
A
T
A
L
E
O
F
T
W
O
C
I
T
I
E
S
Buddy explains!
The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.