It is impossible to overstate the importance of English poet GEOFFREY CHAUCER (c. 1343–c. 1400) to the development of literature in the English language. His writings—which were popular during his own lifetime with the nobility as well as with the increasingly literate merchant class—marked the first celebration of the English vernacular as a tongue worthy of literary endeavor, most notably in his unfinished narrative poem The Canterbury Tales, the format and structure of which continues to be imitated by writers today. But the impact of Chaucer’s work was felt even into the 16th and 17th centuries, when the first major collections of his writings set a high standard for how authors should be presented to the reading public.This widely esteemed seven-volume set—first published in the 1890s by British academic WALTER WILLIAM SKEAT (1835–1912), Erlington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge University—is based solely on Chaucer’s original manuscripts and the earliest available published works (with any significant variations or deviations between versions highlighted in the extensive notes), and comes complete with Skeat’s informative commentary on many passages.Volume VII features works generally appended to collections of Chaucer’s work, and sometimes attributed to him, including:• Thomas Usk: “The Testament of Love”• “The Plowmans Tale”• “Jack Upland”• John Gower: “The Praise of Peace”• Thomas Hoccleve: “The Letter of Cupid”• John Lydgate: “The Complaint of the Black Knight”• Sir Richard Ros: “A Balade: Warning Men to Beware of Deceitful Women”• and more.
