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.

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.