From the Bookshelf of Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)…

The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer

Start date: March 1, 2017

Finish date: March 31, 2017

Why we're reading this: March 2017 Old School Classic Group Read
[close] March 2017 Old School Classic Group Read

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Sep 21, 2017 Clayton Brannon rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Excellent translation of an immensely important work in literature. Read during college in the original form. That was a horror story in of itself. This translation made the reading what it should be.

3 likes · Like · see review

Mar 30, 2017 Melanti rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, classics, e-book, group-reads, 2017

Generally speaking, there are reasons this gets abridged.

The "Selected Tales" versions generally do have the best of the stories.
However, there's some back and forth interplay that you can really only get by reading the stories of each fragment in order.
(If your edition excludes Melibee's and the Parson's tale - believe me, there's reasons they did that.)

On a second note, this isn't the edition I used. I read about 80-90% of this in the original Middle English, but wasn't brave enough to tackle ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 28, 2016 Betsy rated it did not like it

Required reading for English Literature in back in high school. Struggled with middle english thus didn't not like this book. I will not be re-reading this. ...more

Like · see review

Mar 28, 2010 Lori rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, favorites, allegories, humor, classics

While unfinished, this collection of stories has influenced modern English literature in myriad ways. The humor of several of the more bawdy stories still brings a smile to my face, no matter how ancient the prose.

Like · see review