Buried in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey, Geoffrey Chaucer was responsible for the much-loved Canterbury Tales, a clutch of stories (many of them quite bawdy and frank in their depiction of life in the medieval period) told by pilgrims on their journey to the holy site of Canterbury in Kent. This rather engaging website presented by the British Library features two rather famous editions of the Tales, as published by William Caxton in Britain around the year 1476 and 1483. Before taking a look at the works themselves, visitors may want to peruse the Background section which discusses Caxton's life, or take a look at a timeline that offers some historical perspective on Chaucer and these different printed versions of this immensely popular work. Of course, visitors must take a look at the two versions of the Tales offered here, which include full-text transcripts, a page enlargement function, and of course, printable versions of each page.
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