The Complete Canterbury Tales Of Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales has succeeded in cementing a place as one of the earliest masterpieces of English literature. Including plates from the celebrated Kelmscott Chaucer.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of English poet GEOFFREY CHAUCER (c. 1343 c. 1400) to the development of literature in the English language. His writings which were popular during his own lifetime with the nobility as well as with the increasingly literate merchant class marked the first celebration of the English vernacular as a tongue worthy of literary endeavor, most notably in his unfinished narrative poem The Canterbury Tales, the format and structure of which continues to be imitated by writers today. But the impact of Chaucer s work was felt even into the 16th and 17th centuries, when the first major collections of his writings set a high standard for how authors should be presented to the reading public. This widely esteemed seven-volume set first published in the 1890s by British academic WALTER WILLIAM SKEAT (1835 1912), Erlington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge University is based solely on Chaucer s original manuscripts and the earliest available published works (with any significant variations or deviations between versions highlighted in the extensive notes), and comes complete with Skeat s informative commentary on many passages. Volume IV features all extant material for The Canterbury Tales, including: The Knightes Tale The Milleres Tale The Cokes Tale The Prioresses Tale The Monkes Tale The Tale of the Wyf of Bathe and all the rest.

Complete Tales of Canterbury by Geoffrey Chaucer. Also Includes order of the tales, language of Chaucer and suggestions for reading Chaucer

At the Tabard Inn in Southwark, a jovial group of pilgrims assembles, including an unscrupulous Pardoner, a noble-minded Knight, a ribald Miller, the lusty Wife of Bath, and Chaucer himself. As they set out on their journey towards the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury, each character agrees to tell a tale. The twenty-four tales that follow are by turns learned, fantastic, pious, melancholy and lewd, and together offer an unrivalled glimpse into the mind and spirit of medieval England.

Although it was never completed, The Canterbury Tales has succeeded in cementing a place as one of the earliest masterpieces of English literature. Including plates from the celebrated Kelmscott Chaucer, this unique clothbound edition in its own slipcase makes a truly beautiful gift.