The Canterbury Tales

I really don’t know what this book is trying to achieve. On one side is a modern verse translation of the original Middle English; on the facing page is a even more modern prose “translation” of the completely comprehensible text opposite! Chaucer for complete idiots, and I regret buying it!It’s one of those volumes with no named author or editor, nor any other details of the book’s provenance.

I have loved Chaucer's work since my days at Grammar School in the 1940's and 1950's and this edition affords my return to the world of"Middle English.". There are good translations available to read alongside if this is necessary and in particular I would recommend that of NevillCoghill written when at Exeter College, Oxford. I am continuing to make my way alone currently and enjoying every minute of this serious but veryentertaining work of life in the period in which Chaucer lived and wrote. The characters come to life very readily and the "tales" they tell are really quite something ! I recommend it highly and wish you good luck along your pilgrimage from London to Canterbury.

How can anyone not like this very well "translated" work? Full of character (and characters), each pilgrim tells his or her own tale, some mysterious, some comic, some bawdy, on their way to Canterbury. Reading this made me realise that human nature may change over the centuries, but the human heart does not. Excellent and 10 out of 10.

I bought this to help with my British Middle Ages class at university, and found that the translation was really good and comprehensible. However, the translators didn't even attempt to rhyme the lines as Chaucer had (except on those occasions where they happened to rhyme anyway), and there weren't corresponding line numbers, so if you're reading a Middle-English version and have trouble understanding the language, you can't just find the same line in this version - you have to read through it until you think you've found the right place - of you just go through each line-by-line, but that gets a bit irritating.However, when just considering this book without comparing it to others, it is well-translated and has a useful bit at the back entitled "Explanatory Notes" where it briefly goes over each tale and explains the translations and sometimes words and how they would have differed in Middle English.I'd say it was a good buy.

Where is the rest of the tales?No preface, nothing to tell me what are those stars allover the book, what do they mean.Very disappointing!No the book of the tales as I remember them.Will send back.