This facsimile edition is a complete reproduction of the most reliable of the medieval manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales-the Hengwrt Manuscript (or Peniarth 392 D), now in the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire. Because it is to serve as the basic text of the Tales for the projected multivolume Variorum Edition of Chaucer's complete works, much deliberation was given to the choice of the Hengwrt Manuscript. Scribed in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, it is one of the earliest extant manuscripts of the Tales.

Part Seven

Once reviled as an example of Chaucer at his most tasteless and omitted from some editions of The Canterbury Tales, this scatological anecdote has over time been accorded genuine admiration, first grudging and finally unabashed.

As in The Miller's Tale, Chaucer has elaborated a simple fart joke into pungent satire against human foibles. Here too, through subtle references to religious lore, Chaucer transforms mere vulgarity into a truly clever jest and, in the opinion of some critics, a serious commentary on important issues. The particular target of the tale's satire is a...

The Romaunt of the Rose translates in abridged form a long dream vision, part elegant romance, part rollicking satire, written in France during the thirteenth century. The French original, Le Roman de la Rose, had a profound influence on Chaucer, who says he translated the work. From the sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth, scholars assumed that the Romaunt comprised large fragments of that translation. Subsequent debates have divided the Romaunt into two or three segments, and proffered arguments that Chaucer was responsible for one or more of them, or for none. The current consensus...

"A Treatise the Astrolabe" by Geoffrey Chaucer is the work of an avid amateur astronomer who happened also to be England's greatest medieval poet. A user of the astrolabe can plot the movement of the stars, tell time, and calculate numerous other results. Chaucer translated and revised a standard Latin treatment of the astrolabe. His treatise, which is generally regarded as one of the first technical manuals in English and a model of how technical manuals should be written.

Not since 1872 has a free-standing edition of "A Treatise the Astrolabe" been published. Thanks to the expertise of...

Part One

This monumental edition, in two volumes, presents a full record of commentary, both textual and interpretive, on the best known and most widely studied part of Chaucer's work, The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales.

Part One A contains a critical commentary, a textual commentary, text, collations, textual notes, an appendix of sources for the first eighteen lines of The General Prologue, and a bibliographical index.

Because most explication of The General Prologue is directed to particular points, details, and passages, the present edition has devoted Part One B to...

Editors Mark Allen and John H. Fisher present a comprehensive record of the textual traditions of the tale and of the critical commentary from the earliest manuscripts...