Chaucer's Tale: 1386 and the Road to Canterbury

A lively, concise biography of the father of English literature and the tumultuous year that led to The Canterbury Tales
 
At the beginning of 1386, Geoffrey Chaucer—lauded today as the father of English literature—was a middle-aged Londoner with a modest bureaucratic post; his literary successes had been confined to a small audience of intimate friends. But by year’s end, he was swept up in a series of disastrous events that would ultimately leave him jobless, homeless, s…