English Men of Letters

One of the greatest satirists of all time, Geoffrey Chaucer was born to a London wine merchant in the 1340s. In 1367 he was called to the court of Edward III where he subsequently performed a number of diplomatic duties. His duties not withstanding, he still found time to write. His first major poetic work Book of the Duchesse was written in 1369 though his critically-acclaimed Canterbury Tales was first published some time around 1467 from a flawed manuscript. Find out why, even though some of the tales included in subsequent publications were later discovered not to be his, Chaucer is still heralded as one of the foremost writers of his time in Chaucer, part of the English Men of Letters series.