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Canterbury Tales
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
- Used
- near fine
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Near Fine/Very Good
- Seller
-
Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc. [1934], 1934. First edition thus. Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. Rockwell Kent. 8vo. [4], v-xvi, [2], 626, [4] pp. Tan cloth with an inset decoration on the front board and a paper label printed in black on the spine, brown topstain. Decorated endpapers and pastedowns. Illustrated with a frontispiece and with additional plates by Rockwell Kent. Rendered into Modern English by J. U. Nicolson. Introduction by Gordon Hall Gerould. A nice copy of Kent's Chaucer, an attractive and stylish publication. Jacket shows a few chips and very minor soiling to the rear panel.
Synopsis
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London, the son of a wine-merchant, in about 1342, and as he spent his life in royal government service his career happens to be unusually well documented. By 1357 Chaucer was a page to the wife of Prince Lionel, second son of Edward III, and it was while in the prince's service that Chaucer was ransomed when captured during the English campaign in France in 1359-60. Chaucer's wife Philippa, whom he married c. 1365, was the sister of Katherine Swynford, the mistress (c. 1370) and third wife (1396) of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, whose first wife Blanche (d. 1368) is commemorated in Chaucer's ealrist major poem, The Book of the Duchess . From 1374 Chaucer worked as controller of customs on wool in the port of London, but between 1366 and 1378 he made a number of trips abroad on official business, including two trips to Italy in 1372-3 and 1378. The influence of Chaucer's encounter with Italian literature is felt in the poems he wrote in the late 1370's and early 1380s – The House of Fame , The Parliament of Fowls and a version of The Knight's Tale – and finds its fullest expression in Troilus and Criseyde . In 1386 Chaucer was member of parliament for Kent, but in the same year he resigned his customs post, although in 1389 he was appointed Clerk of the King's Works (resigning in 1391). After finishing Troilus and his translation into English prose of Boethius' De consolatione philosophiae , Chaucer started his Legend of Good Women . In the 1390s he worked on his most ambitious project, The Canterbury Tales , which remained unfinished at his death. In 1399 Chaucer leased a house in the precincts of Westminster Abbey but died in 1400 and was buried in the Abbey.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Evening Star Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 000010997
- Title
- Canterbury Tales
- Author
- Chaucer, Geoffrey
- Illustrator
- Rockwell Kent
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First edition thus
- Publisher
- Garden City Publishing Company, Inc. [1934]
- Place of Publication
- Garden City, NY
- Date Published
- 1934
Terms of Sale
Evening Star Books
All items subject to prior sale.� Certain items and shipping to certain countries may exceed the standard shipping amounts.� Any shipping expenses incurred above the standard rate will be billed at cost. Payment is in US dollars.� Personal checks must clear prior to shipment (please allow 10 days).� Books may be returned within 15 calendar days of delivery for any reason, so long as we are notified of return within 10 days of delivery.� Return items must be well packaged and fully insured and must be returned in same condition as sold. Any book described as a First Edition is also a First Printing unless otherwise indicated.
About the Seller
Evening Star Books
Biblio member since 2007
Madison, Wisconsin
About Evening Star Books
We buy and sell rare and fine books in many fields. Our interests include philosophy, modern first editions, and works of historical or intellectual interest. In addition to bookselling, we regularly do valuations and appraisals for non-IRS purposes. Evening Star Books is a Limited Liability Company.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
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