The Canterbury Tales

HarperCollins is proud to present our range of timeless literary classics. 'Full wise is he that can himselven knowe.' Written at the end of the fourteenth century, the poet Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales are a collection of stories told in Middle-English. Thirty pilgrims leave Southwark to travel to a shrine in Canterbury and become the narrators, telling each other stories of chivalrous romance, fable, parable, debate and comedy as they journey. Their accounts of the human condition remain as resonant today as when they were first written.

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) is often considered the the father of English literature and the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. He wrote The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde, but his most famous work remains The Canterbury Tales. He was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.