Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Marcia Williams’ cheerful comic strip style is well-suited to the retelling of the tales told by Chaucer’s pilgrims. Each tale is contained within one or two spreads, framed by a cheeky commentary, while the pilgrims’ progress from Southwark to Canterbury can be viewed along the bottom of the page. The stories are told in straightforward modern English beneath the pictures while the spoken words within the pictures are in Chaucer’s Middle English, their meaning generally apparent from the context, although a brief glossary is included.

This book makes Chaucer accessible to a younger audience than wouldn't usually get to meet him, and connections can be made with other known stories, for example, the Wife of Bath’s tale with the Arthurian legend ‘Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady’.