Canterbury Tales
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: No dust jacket - cloth/board in good condition
Pages: Good
Few works in the English language have endured as magnificently as Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales — a dazzling mosaic of medieval life told through the voices of thirty pilgrims journeying from London to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. Written in the late 14th century, this landmark collection presents a brilliantly diverse cast — knights, millers, nuns, merchants, and rogues — each narrating a tale that ranges from chivalric romance and bawdy comedy to moral allegory and tragic verse, painting an unrivalled portrait of an entire society in motion. Rendered here into contemporary verse by J.U. Nicolson and illustrated with the celebrated woodcuts of William Caxton, this edition brings Chaucer's vision to life with rare accessibility and visual richness. Chaucer's genius lies in his extraordinary command of character, irony, and narrative voice, anticipating the psychological complexity of the modern novel by several centuries. The Canterbury Tales remains a cornerstone of the Western literary canon, studied as much for its linguistic ingenuity — capturing the very birth of literary English — as for its timeless wit and humanity. This Franklin Library edition, with its elegant presentation and historic woodcut illustrations, is a collector's treasure that invites readers to ask: after six hundred years, why do these voices still feel so urgently, so disturbingly alive?
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Format: Hardback
Published: 1981, The Franklin Library, Franklin Center, Pennsylvania
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: No dust jacket - cloth/board in good condition
Pages: Good
Few works in the English language have endured as magnificently as Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales — a dazzling mosaic of medieval life told through the voices of thirty pilgrims journeying from London to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. Written in the late 14th century, this landmark collection presents a brilliantly diverse cast — knights, millers, nuns, merchants, and rogues — each narrating a tale that ranges from chivalric romance and bawdy comedy to moral allegory and tragic verse, painting an unrivalled portrait of an entire society in motion. Rendered here into contemporary verse by J.U. Nicolson and illustrated with the celebrated woodcuts of William Caxton, this edition brings Chaucer's vision to life with rare accessibility and visual richness. Chaucer's genius lies in his extraordinary command of character, irony, and narrative voice, anticipating the psychological complexity of the modern novel by several centuries. The Canterbury Tales remains a cornerstone of the Western literary canon, studied as much for its linguistic ingenuity — capturing the very birth of literary English — as for its timeless wit and humanity. This Franklin Library edition, with its elegant presentation and historic woodcut illustrations, is a collector's treasure that invites readers to ask: after six hundred years, why do these voices still feel so urgently, so disturbingly alive?