Lively, absorbing, often outrageously funny, Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" is a work of genius, an undisputed classic that has held a special appeal for each generation of readers. "The Canterbury Tales" gather twenty-nine of literature's most enduring (and endearing) characters in a vivid group portrait that captures the full spectrum of medieval society, from the exalted Knight to the humble plowman. A graceful modren translation facing each page of the text allows the contemporary reader to enjoy the fast pace of these selections from "The Canterbury Tales" with the poetry of the Middle English original always at first hand.