The Prioress's Tale and Other Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Done Into Modern English by Prof. Skeat

The Prioress's Tale and Other Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Done Into Modern English by Prof. Skeat

Author: Chaucer, Geoffrey Translated and Edited by Walter S. Skeat

16mo. (4.5" x 5.875") Contemporary red morocco, exuberantly gilt, covers with central panel framed by very broad and animated border with many elegant ivy leaves on arching tendrils, raised bands, spine panels and turn-ins repeating the ivy leaf motif in gilt, top edge gilt, other edges rough trimmed. Woodcut strapwork crest on half-title, one engraved plate. The first few leaves and perhaps a dozen others with light inoffensive foxing, otherwise a bright, lovely copy, virtually pristine inside and out.

From Wiki: Geoffrey Chaucer (/ˈtʃɔːsər/; c. 1340s – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament. Among Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde. He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin. Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage" (i.e., the first one capable of finding poetic matter in English). Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian manuscripts.

Catalogue: Professor Skeat has given us here a learned introduction relating to Chaucer's sources and a set of notes to his translation of five of Chaucer's Tales, including the "Prioress's Tale", the "Pardoner's Tale", the "Clerk's Tale of Patient Griselda, the "Second Nun's Tale", and the "Tale of the Canon's Yeoman", all done into modern English iambic hexameter rhymed couplets. Part of the "King's Classics" series under the general editorship of Israel Gollancz, the translation purposefully archaic but very readable. The binding here is very much in the style of the beautiful work done by Cobden-Sanderson at his Doves Bindery.

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Full red leather, heavy gilt decoration, Engraved plate, Pristine example, Doublure Binding, King's Classics, Decorative Books, Decorative Leather, Beautiful Decorative Book