THE CANTERBURY TALES
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
- Used
- Condition
- About fine with a bit of spotting to spine of Vol. I, and minor fading to board edges, contents clean and bright, all plates fin
- Seller
-
Paris, Tennessee, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
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
- First Folio (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 23643
- Title
- THE CANTERBURY TALES
- Author
- Chaucer, Geoffrey
- Book Condition
- Used - About fine with a bit of spotting to spine of Vol. I, and minor fading to board edges, contents clean and bright, all plates fin
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- Limited to 500 copies on hand-made Riccardi paper, this no. 265
- Publisher
- Philip Lee Warner, Publisher to the Medici Society
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1913
- Bookseller catalogs
- ILLUSTRATED; PRIVATE PRESSES;
- Note
- May be a multi-volume set and require additional postage.
Terms of Sale
First Folio
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First Folio
About First Folio
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....
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Quarto
- The term quarto is used to describe a page or book size. A printed sheet is made with four pages of text on each side, and the...