The Canterbury Tales/Source

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Transcriber's Notes:

Credits: This e-text was scanned, re-formatted and edited with extra notes by Donal O' Danachair (kodak_seaside@hotmail.com). I would like to acknowledge the help of Edwin Duncan, Juris Lidaka and Aniina Jokinnen in identifying some of the poems no Longer attributed to Chaucer. This e-text, with its notes, is hereby placed in the public domain.

Preface: The preface is for a combined volume of poems by Chaucer and Edmund Spenser. The Spenser poems will shortly be available as a separate E-text.

Spelling and punctuation: These are the same as in the book as far as possible. Accents have been removed. Diereses (umlauts) have been removed from English words and replaced by "e" in German ones. The AE and OE digraphs have been transcribed as two letters. The British pound (currency) sign has been replaced by a capital L. Greek words have been transliterated.

Footnotes: The original book has an average of 30 footnotes per page. These were of three types: (A) Glosses or explanations of obsolete words and phrases. These have been treated as follows: 1. In the poems, they have been moved up into the right-hand margin. Some of them have been shortened or paraphrased in order to fit. Explanations of single words have a single asterisk at the end of the word and at the beginning of the explanation*. *like this If two words in the same line have explanations the first* has one and the second**, two. *like this **and this Explanations of phrases have an asterisk at the start and end *of the phrase* and of the explanation *like this* Sometimes these glosses wrap onto the next line, still in the right margin. If you read this e-text using a monospaced font (like Courier in a word processor such as MS Word, or the default font in most text editors) then the marginal notes are right-justified. 2. In the prose tales, they have been imbedded into the text in square brackets after the word or phrase they refer to [like this]. (B) Etymological explanations of these words. These are indicted by a number in angle brackets in the marginal gloss.* The note will be found at the *like this <1> end of the poem or section. (C) Longer notes commenting on or explaining the text. These are indicated in the text by numbers in angle brackets thus: <1>. The note will be found at the end of the poem or section.

Latin: Despite his declared aim of editing the tales "for popular perusal", Purves has left nearly all Latin quotations untranslated. I have translated them as well as I could -- any errors are my fault, not his.

THE CANTERBURY TALES And other Poems of GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Edited for Popular Perusal by D. Laing Purves

CONTENTS

PREFACE LIFE OF CHAUCER THE CANTERBURY TALES
 * The General Prologue
 * The Knight's Tale
 * The Miller's tale
 * The Reeve's Tale
 * The Cook's Tale
 * The Man of Law's Tale
 * The Wife of Bath's Tale
 * The Friar's Tale
 * The Sompnour's Tale
 * The Clerk's Tale
 * The Merchant's Tale
 * The Squire's Tale
 * The Franklin's Tale
 * The Doctor's Tale
 * The Pardoner's Tale
 * The Shipman's Tale
 * The Prioress's Tale
 * Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas
 * Chaucer's Tale of Meliboeus
 * The Monk's Tale
 * The Nun's Priest's Tale
 * The Second Nun's Tale
 * The Canon's Yeoman's Tale
 * The Manciple's Tale
 * The Parson's Tale
 * Preces de Chauceres

THE COURT OF LOVE <1> THE CUCKOO AND THE NIGHTINGALE <1> THE ASSEMBLY OF FOWLS THE FLOWER AND THE LEAF <1> THE HOUSE OF FAME TROILUS AND CRESSIDA CHAUCER'S DREAM <1> THE PROLOGUE TO THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN CHAUCER'S A.B.C. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

Transcriber's Note.

1. Modern scholars believe that Chaucer was not the author of these poems.