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The Best Fiction Books » Classic English Literature

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
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The Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales is a funny and moving collection of fictional life stories, written in a language now known as Middle English in the 14th century. It’s accessible to the modern reader, but can be a little hard to follow. If you’d like to read the stories, but don’t have the time to get into the language, reading a modern translation—like poet, author and translator David Wright’s The Canterbury Tales: A Prose Version in Modern English—is a good option. 

Recommendations from our site

“Each individual tale can be interpreted in so many ways—Chaucer really opens up possibilities of multiple interpretations. Even when he seems to give you a clear moral, that moral is never effective or convincing. He’s always saying: ‘Find your own moral; find your own meaning.’” Read more...

The Canterbury Tales: A Reading List

Marion Turner, Biographer

Other books by Geoffrey Chaucer

The House of Fame by Geoffrey Chaucer

The House of Fame
by Geoffrey Chaucer

Troilus and Criseyde Geoffrey Chaucer (ed. by Stephen Barney)

Troilus and Criseyde
Geoffrey Chaucer (ed. by Stephen Barney)

The Riverside Chaucer by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Riverside Chaucer
by Geoffrey Chaucer

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