The Canterbury Tales: A Selectio

Blurb

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1386 Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of peace and then three years later in 1389 Clerk of the King's work. It was during these years that Chaucer began working on his most famous text, The Canterbury Tales. The tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from London Canterbury in order to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.
After a long list of works written earlier in his career, including Troilus and Criseyde, House of Fame, and "Parliament of Fowls", The Canterbury Tales is near-unanimously seen as Chaucer's magnum opus. He uses the tales and the descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and particularly of the Church. Chaucer's use of such a wide range of classes and types of people was without precedent in English.