Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Vol. IV: The Canterbury Tales (in Seven Volumes)

It is impossible to overstate the importance of English poet GEOFFREY CHAUCER (c. 1343-c. 1400) to the development of literature in the English language. His writings--which were popular during his own lifetime with the nobility as well as with the increasingly literate merchant class--marked the first celebration of the English vernacular as a tongue worthy of literary endeavor, most notably in his unfinished narrative poem The Canterbury Tales, the format and structure of which continues ...