(Original, Unabridged Classic, Premium Hardbound Collector's Edition, Ideal for Gifting)
Geoffrey Chaucer
"We know little of the things for which we pray…"
On the road to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, a group of pilgrims from every walk of medieval English life agree to tell stories to pass the time. The Knight tells a tale of chivalric love; the Wife of Bath — five times married and entirely self-possessed — offers a startling lesson on sovereignty in marriage; the Pardoner, corrupt and self-aware, delivers a sermon on greed. Geoffrey Chaucer began The Canterbury Tales in the 1380s and never finished them. What he left is already the most vivid, varied, and human document in medieval literature.
Chaucer invented nothing less than a portrait of a whole society — pious and hypocritical, bawdy and reverent, noble and grasping by turns. Readers who come to it expecting dusty archaism find instead something warm, funny, and immediately recognisable. The pilgrimage is a metaphor for life's journey; the stories are a mirror of the full range of human experience.
This premium hardbound collector's edition with sprayed edges presents the original, unabridged text — an essential volume for every serious reader of English literature.
