A re-editing of F.N. Robinson's second edition of The works of Geoffrey Chaucer published in 1957 by the team of experts at the Riverside Institute who have greatly expanded the introductory material, explanatory notes, textual notes, bibliography and glossary. The result of many years' study. The Riverside Chaucer is the most authentic and exciting edition available of Chaucer's complete works.

Geoffrey Chaucer is rightly regarded as the Father of English Literature. His observant wit, his narrative skill and characterization, his linguistic invention, have been a well from which the language's greatest writers have drawn: Shakespeare, Pope, Austen, Dickens among them. A courtier, a trade emissary and diplomat, he fought in the Hundred Years War and was captured and ransomed; his marriage into the family of John of Gaunt ensured his influence in political society. For more than a decade, he was engaged on his most famous work of all, The Canterbury Tales, until his death around 1400; there is no record of the precise date or the circumstances of his demise, despite vivid and colourful speculation. Bernard O'Donoghue is one of the country's leading poets and medievalists. His accessible new selection includes a linking commentary on the chosen texts, together with a comprehensive line-for-line glossary that makes this the most approachable and accessible introduction to Chaucer that readers can buy.

A retelling of five of Chaucer's classic tales in simplified language for new readers. Includes activities to enhance reading comprehension and improve vocabulary.

A fresh, modern prose retelling captures the vigorous and bawdy spirit of Chaucer’s classic Renowned critic, historian, and biographer Peter Ackroyd takes on what is arguably the greatest poem in the English language and presents the work in a prose vernacular that makes it accessible to modern readers while preserving the spirit of the original. A mirror for medieval society, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales concerns a motley group of pilgrims who meet in a London inn on their way to Canterbury and agree to take part in a storytelling competition. Ranging from comedy to tragedy, pious sermon to ribald farce, heroic adventure to passionate romance, the tales serve not only as a summation of the sensibility of the Middle Ages but as a representation of the drama of the human condition. Ackroyd’s contemporary prose emphasizes the humanity of these characters—as well as explicitly rendering the naughty good humor of the writer whose comedy influenced Fielding and Dickens—yet still masterfully evokes the euphonies and harmonies of Chaucer’s verse. This retelling is sure to delight modern readers and bring a new appreciation to those already familiar with the classic tales.

"A direct, clear, and user-friendly introduction to the sound of Chaucer's language, as well as to aspects of Chaucer's vocabulary and principal metrical form."--Back cover.

It's the Middle Ages, and an ill-matched band of strangers is setting off on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. To amuse themselves along the way, they hold a storytelling competition. But the tales soon turn from ripping yarns to slanging matches... With a cast of unforgettable characters, from the blue-blooded Knight and the merry Wife of Bath to the shifty Pardoner, the story is as much about the riotous pilgirims as the weird and wonderful tales they tell. Clearly written in a modern, approachable style to introduce young readers to this much-loved classic story.

"More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the centre of political life--yet his poems are anything but conventional. Edgy, complicated, and often dark, they reflect a conflicted world, and their astonishing diversity and innovative language earned Chaucer renown as the father of English literature. Marion Turner, however, reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. To understand his accomplishment, she reconstructs in unprecedented detail the cosmopolitan world of Chaucer's adventurous life, focusing on the places and spaces that fired his imagination. Uncovering important new information about Chaucer's travels, private life, and the early circulation of his writings, this innovative biography documents a series of vivid episodes, moving from the commercial wharves of London to the frescoed chapels of Florence and the kingdom of Navarre, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived side by side. The narrative recounts Chaucer's experiences as a prisoner of war in France, as a father visiting his daughter's nunnery, as a member of a chaotic Parliament, and as a diplomat in Milan, where he encountered the writings of Dante and Boccaccio. At the same time, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of Chaucer's writings, taking the reader to the Troy of Troilus and Criseyde, the gardens of the dream visions, and the peripheries and thresholds of The Canterbury Tales. By exploring the places Chaucer visited, the buildings he inhabited, the books he read, and the art and objects he saw, this landmark biography tells the extraordinary story of how a wine merchant's son became the poet of The Canterbury Tales." -- Publisher's description.

The Book of the Duchess is a surreal poem that was presumably written as an elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster's (the wife of Geoffrey Chaucer's patron, the royal Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt) death in 1368 or 1369. The poem was written a few years after the event and is widely regarded as flattering to both the Duke and the Duchess. It has 1334 lines and is written in octosyllabic rhyming couplets.