Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400), born in London, England, is often considered the greatest English poet of the middle ages and the 'father of English literature'. Throughout his life, Chaucer maintained a successful career in the civil service, including roles as a noblewoman's page, a courtier and a diplomat, and later achieved fame for his extensive body of poetry and philosophy. Perhaps the best known of these is his unfinished work The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories told by 24 fictional pilgrims in a story-telling competition as they journey to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket.
![Book Cover for The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer The House of Fame: The Legend of Good Women: The Treatise on the Astrolabe: With an Account of the Sources of the Canterbury Tales.[V. 4] the Canterbury Tales: T by Geoffrey Chaucer](https://storage.googleapis.com/lr-assets/_nielsen/200/9781345516418.jpg)
