The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. Structurally, the collection resembles Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, which Chaucer may have read during his first diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372. While the structure of the Tales is largely linear, with one story following another, it is also much more than that. In the General Prologue, Chaucer describes not the tales to be told, but the people who will tell them, making it clear that structure will depend on the characters rather than a general theme or moral.
This Chaucer's work is a seminal masterpiecefor of english literature. It is usually considered the first attempt to popularise the literary use of the vernacular English. Preface and notes by David Laing Purves.