
In 2004, Linne Mooney claimed that she was able to identify the scrivener who worked for Chaucer as an Adam Pinkhurst.

Only 10 copies of this edition are known to exist, including one held by the British Library and one held by the Folger Shakespeare Library. The first version of The Canterbury Tales to be published in print was William Caxton's 1476 edition. Another famous example is the Ellesmere Manuscript, a manuscript handwritten by one person with illustrations by several illustrators the tales are put in an order that many later editors have followed for centuries. The very oldest is probably MS Peniarth 392 D (called " Hengwrt"), written by a scribe shortly after Chaucer's death. The Tales vary in both minor and major ways from manuscript to manuscript many of the minor variations are due to copyists' errors, while it is suggested that in other cases Chaucer both added to his work and revised it as it was being copied and possibly as it was being distributed.Įven the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Tales are not Chaucer's originals. Fifty-five of these manuscripts are thought to have been originally complete, while 28 are so fragmentary that it is difficult to ascertain whether they were copied individually or as part of a set. This comparison should not be taken as evidence of the Tales' popularity in the century after Chaucer's death, because, according to Derek Pearsall, it is unfair considering that Prick of Conscience had all the benefit of the "preservation of a dogmatic religious subject-matter". There are 84 manuscripts and four incunabula (printed before 1500) editions of the work, which is more than for any other vernacular English literary text with the exception of Prick of Conscience. The question of whether The Canterbury Tales is a finished work has not been answered to date. Although perhaps incomplete, The Canterbury Tales is revered as one of the most important works in English literature. Thomas Becket's shrine (making for a total of about 120 stories). According to the Prologue, Chaucer's intention was to write four stories from the perspective of each pilgrim, two each on the way to and from their ultimate destination, St. In the General Prologue, some 30 pilgrims are introduced. The Canterbury Tales is generally thought to have been incomplete at the end of Chaucer's life.

It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was seminal in this evolution of literary preference. English had, however, been used as a literary language centuries before Chaucer's time, and several of Chaucer's contemporaries- John Gower, William Langland, the Pearl Poet, and Julian of Norwich-also wrote major literary works in English. It has been suggested that the greatest contribution of The Canterbury Tales to English literature was the popularisation of the English vernacular in mainstream literature, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin.
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The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) 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. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's magnum opus. The Canterbury Tales ( Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 13.
