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Canterbury Tales
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
- Used
- Condition
- Collectible - Near Fine
- Seller
-
Argillite, Kentucky, United States
Item Price
A$53.28A$47.95
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Garden City: International Collectors Library, 1934. FauxLeatherbound. Collectible - Near Fine. 5.75"x8.5". 627 pp. Blue faux leather boards. Gilt candlebra design on front w/gilt frame. Mirrored on spine. Navy silk ribbon. Scenic paste down in blue ink. Typography by Robert Josephy. Rendered into modern english by J.U. Nicholson. With illustrations by Rockwell Kent and an introdution by Gordon Hall Gerould. Spine straight, binding tight, pages clean and bright. Not x-library, & unmarked. Age spots on silk ribbon. GIFT QUALITY. The procession that crosses Chaucer's pages is as full of life and as richly textured as a medieval tapestry. The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others who make up the cast of characters -- including Chaucer himself -- are real people, with human emotions and weaknesses. When it is remembered that Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was the standard literary language across western Europe, the magnitude of his achievement is even more remarkable. But Chaucer's genius needs no historical introduction; it bursts forth from every page of The Canterbury Tales.
If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. He never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.
If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. He never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.
Synopsis
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London, the son of a wine-merchant, in about 1342, and as he spent his life in royal government service his career happens to be unusually well documented. By 1357 Chaucer was a page to the wife of Prince Lionel, second son of Edward III, and it was while in the prince's service that Chaucer was ransomed when captured during the English campaign in France in 1359-60. Chaucer's wife Philippa, whom he married c. 1365, was the sister of Katherine Swynford, the mistress (c. 1370) and third wife (1396) of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, whose first wife Blanche (d. 1368) is commemorated in Chaucer's ealrist major poem, The Book of the Duchess . From 1374 Chaucer worked as controller of customs on wool in the port of London, but between 1366 and 1378 he made a number of trips abroad on official business, including two trips to Italy in 1372-3 and 1378. The influence of Chaucer's encounter with Italian literature is felt in the poems he wrote in the late 1370's and early 1380s – The House of Fame , The Parliament of Fowls and a version of The Knight's Tale – and finds its fullest expression in Troilus and Criseyde . In 1386 Chaucer was member of parliament for Kent, but in the same year he resigned his customs post, although in 1389 he was appointed Clerk of the King's Works (resigning in 1391). After finishing Troilus and his translation into English prose of Boethius' De consolatione philosophiae , Chaucer started his Legend of Good Women . In the 1390s he worked on his most ambitious project, The Canterbury Tales , which remained unfinished at his death. In 1399 Chaucer leased a house in the precincts of Westminster Abbey but died in 1400 and was buried in the Abbey.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Blacks Bookshop
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 13216
- Title
- Canterbury Tales
- Author
- Chaucer, Geoffrey
- Format/Binding
- FauxLeatherbound
- Book Condition
- Used - Collectible - Near Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Publisher
- International Collectors Library
- Place of Publication
- Garden City
- Date Published
- 1934
Terms of Sale
Blacks Bookshop
All items are sold as described. If you have received the wrong item being the wrong book title or author, or there was damage during shipping, please contact us within 48 hours of receipt via email to request a refund. In your email, please state order number, date received by mail, and your reason for requesting a refund. We do not give refunds because you change your mind or you have found the item somewhere else at a lesser price.
About the Seller
Blacks Bookshop
Biblio member since 2021
Argillite, Kentucky
About Blacks Bookshop
A little country book shop nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains along the banks of the East Fork of Little Sandy River.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- X-Library
- A former library book, generally containing library acquisition and ownership stamped markings, and other typical indications of...
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
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