Chaucer Books

Had wanted to read this for about 15 years, but it's funny how more books are published and then you have to read them? How 'bout that? This book has been out six centuries, so I guessed another 15 years would not hurt me. Chaucer's facility with language, his ability to rhyme, his familiarity with the human condition, and his ability to link the human conditions to elements of people's trades and careers at this time truly make this book one which paved the way for many other satires, multi-person narratives, and rich, nuanced tales of particular events at particular times.

This book is endlessly satisfying. I found Chaucer's poetry to be very intelligent, with allusions to the work of the day, to cultural references, to fashion, to religious beliefs, to prominent figures in the world at that time, and most of all, to allowing his imagination not to be limited by expectations on the limits of his writing. The stories in the book come via the relating of experiences told by travelers on their way to Canterbury. At times, the stories are considered too dry or too preposterous or perhaps they are too derivative. But Chaucer imbues the multiple characters, the minister's wife, the metalworker, the barrister, the civil servant, with characters who respond as mentioned to stories, if the stories are not seen to be up to scratch. Many of the stories concern sexual hijinx. Some concern convoluted family relations, some concern work concerns. Chaucer's currency with the lives and ways of many in 14th century England make the book rich and satisfying. He was a master poet and it seemed that Chaucer enjoyed spinning these tales for the more privileged who would have read this book at first. It is not surprising, however, that the book has remained current. The interests, themes, and topics from which Chaucer very ably spins his tales remain relevant today.

I bought this book as a gift for my sisters birthday. It was on her wishlist, yet neither of us realized it is a coffee table sort of book. Maybe neither of us read the review carefully! Either way, we were both happy with the quality and the illustrations inside our beautiful.

The only negative was that it arrived with one of the corners a little smushed.

What would it be like if you had to make a very long journey on horse back? Pretty boring, right? But what if someone had the brilliant idea of telling stories on the way there? That would make the trip go a lot faster. This is the premise of the Canterbury Tales. There are a lot of people who all want to go to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. They all met at a pub when the pub owner said that they should all tell one story on the way there and one on the way back. The version of the Canterbury tales only consists of four of the one hundred twenty eight that were told.
The first story that is told by the Nun's priest. This story is about a poor widow who lives on a farm. As you get further in this story it starts retelling the story of a chicken and a hen. This chicken had many wonderful hens around him. "This noble rooster ruled over seven hens, whose work it was to please him. They were his sisters and his wives." (pg. 20) But there was one hen named Lady Pertelote that he liked the most. One night he had a dream about a fox eating him. The next morning he told Lady Pertelote and she thought it didn't mean anything. A couple of days later a fox tricked him to shut his eyes and then the fox snuck up behind him and snatched him in his mouth. He was saved by the widow.
The next person to tell was the pardoner. His story was about greed. There were three people who were searching for death because they heard of all the horrible things he had done and wanted to kill him. While on their way they met an old man who told the men, "If you're so anxious to find Death, turn up this crooked road. I left him in that grove, under a tree and there he'll stay." (pg. 41) So that's what they did. When they got there they saw a sack full of gold and decided not to chase after Death but take the gold by night. They decided for one of them to go into the city and get wine to celebrate. The person that went was the youngest of them all. While he was gone the two thought up a plan to kill the third one so that they only had to split the money between them. The third boy wanted the money all to himself so he poisoned two of the bottles of wine and left one free of poison for himself. As he got the tree the two men killed him and they celebrated by drinking the wine and they died too. In the end they all got there wish. They met Death.
Those two were my favorite and the next two are by the Wife of Bath and the Franklin. The wife of Bath is about a man who threatens the life of another if they don't tell him what women want. The franklin's tale is about women who loved a man who left her and she was very sad. Nothing could make her feel better. If you want to know what happens at the end of these stories you'll have to read the book.
Historically this book is very good. It is based in the year of 1386. It show the life style of people who lived in the middle ages. It taught me that not all people were rich back then. It is historically spot on but the thing about this book is because it was written in the middle ages all the living conditions are right but it's very whimsical. Chickens can't talk, and Death isn't a person. In a way it shows how people thought back then. It tells us that some people might have wanted to meet death. Maybe in a physical way because they wanted to die or they just wanted to see someone death took away from them.
The reason I liked this book was because of the old English. I like taking in the metaphors and deciphering it. If you like Shakespeare then you'll most likely like this book. It is very whimsical and magical. It shows the people in the middle ages in a very metaphorical way. This book shows how life can be mystical and great even when you don't except it.

This is a translation abridgement (not the original text). It's not going to help you at all, with any english class. If you want to listen to the original unabridged text in middle english look here:The Canterbury Tales

I was trying to find an illustrated version of the original Chaucer as a wedding gift for a friend of mine, and found this one. I didn't realize (my fault--it's in the Publisher's Weekly review) that this was a child's version of the classic. The illustrations are nice, and, quite frankly, I haven't read the author's interpretation, but I wanted to make it clear to folks that it's not the original text, nor even an unabridged translation.

Amazon seems to be including all the reviews of different editions and translations of Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" on the same page. If you read the reviews here you will be very confused. Some refer to an original language edition (either the one made by R. A. Shoaf or Stephen Barney's Norton Critical edition), and some refer to a translation, at least one to the translation done by Nevill Coghill. The reader needs to pay careful attention to what edition is actually on the screen when making a selection.

If you want to read the original text, I would recommend Stephen Barney's edition. Barney is the editor who made the critical edition for the Riverside Chaucer, and his Norton Critical edition includes ten excellent critical essays in addition to Chaucer's poem, Giovanni Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" (Chaucer's source), and Robert Henryson's "Testament of Crisseid." Shoaf's edition is also good, but twice as expensive, and it does not have as much contextual material. Coghill is a fine translator of Chaucer, and for the reader who does not want to tackle the Middle English he will provide an adequate experience. But beware: His smooth couplets sound more like Alexander Pope than the vigorous medieval writer he is translating.

Geoffrey Chaucer's fresh, but, sometimes very sentimental text tells the story of the brave knight, Troilus, a `slave of love', Criseyde, a realistic widow, and their go-between, the intriguer and opportunist, Pandarus.

For the idealist, Troilus: 'Next to the foulest nettle, tick and rough, / Rises the rose in sweetness, smooth and soft.'

For the realist, Criseyde: 'Am I to love and put myself in danger? / Am I to lose my darling liberty? / She who loves none has little cause for tears. / Husbands are always full of jealousy' / And men are too untrue /Or masterful, or hunting novelty.'

The sly intriguer Pandarus brings them together: 'Just as with dice chance governs every throw / So too with love, its pleasures come and go.'

However, the love between Troilus and Criseyde cannot blossom for political reasons. The realist betrays the idealist.

For Troilus (Chaucer), the fundamental question is: 'Since all that comes, comes by necessity / Thus to be lost is but my destiny.'
Was his fate ruled by predestination or was there only foreknowledge by God? 'To prone predestination, yet again others affirm we have free choice. To question which is cause of which, / and see Whether the fact of God's foreknowledge is / the certain cause of the necessity.'
Chaucer's answer is `determinism': 'And this is quite sufficient anyway To prove free choice in us a mere pretence.'

However, the priests are not his favorites: 'The temple priests incline to tell you this / That dreams are sent as Heaven's revelations; / They also tell you, and with emphasis / They're diabolic hallucinations.'

For Chaucer, 'Think this world is but a fair / passing as soon as flower-scent in air.'

This poem is not as strong as the Canterbury Tales, but it is a must read for all lovers of world literature.

Please be careful! Everything on this page gives you the impression that this is a hardcover version of Shoaf's edition of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. IT IS NOT - IT DOES NOT EVEN CONTAIN THE POEM. This is a collection of essays about the poem that is really only suited to Chaucer scholars. Don't make the same mistake I made. It should be subtitled - ESSAYS - or have some other clear description of the nature of the book. I can not evaluate the essays, because I haven't yet read the poem because of this mis-identification of these Essays with the Superior Shoaf edition of Troilus and Criseyde by Chaucer.

This is a great edition for the masochist literature lover who wants to attempt middle english text. The footnotes are well researched and the supplementary papers are great additions.

As to the actual story, it is a wonderful, if not a little too realistic, love story taking place during the Trojan war. It mixes Greek customs and period with Chaucer's life in the middle ages. The story confuses itself with middle age customs with ancient greek traditions, with some parts completely unable to be understood (as the footnotes can atest with the same difficulties).

A good edition for English majors, bad for the faint of heart.

Your web-page is misleading. It quotes, and the image displays, the Middle English original of the poem. The inside pages shown are from the Middle English edition. However, (and the modernized title should be a giveaway, but it wasn't) the edition on this page is in modern English -- a translation, not Chaucer's poem. You need to clean up this page, take away the Middle English quotations, state that it's a modern translation, and refer the prospective buyer to the actual, modernized edition -- which the buyer may or may not want (in my case I did not), with assistance in finding the actual Middle English masterpiece.

Part two of the trilogy (Intellectuals, this, Heroes) is a very different beast to the first volume. Here we have potted bios of some famous artists, with an eclectic mix of information around the theme of their creative output. Much more light-hearted and less polemical than Intellectuals, there is much here to amuse and encourage. Being largely ignorant of the lives of these folks, I found this informative too, though clearly the main aim isn't to be a comprehensive or even balanced set of biographies.

The introductory essay on creators generally is the highlight of the book, starting with the divine creation mandate to form culture and moving on to explore some themes in the lives of the creators who make up the rest of the book. The idiosyncratic lives of luxury, funded by fraudulent begging, that were required by some to produce their work is thought-provoking. Most encouraging of all, he turns to those whose health (physical or psychological) should have hindered their lives and would have turned any of us into heaps of listlessness but which didn't stop some of these from massively humbling output. Very inspiring for those suffering from chronic illness.

Really tedious. A few good chapters, but on the whole, it's not about creative courage, it's about what Johnson happens to like about particular people. So the reader doesn't learn as much about whomever as one might hope.

If you ever read the syndicated political columns of William F. Buckley, the premier American literary conservative of his era, you undoubtedly recall that once in each effort he threw in an obscure vocabulary word, precisely used by him, never encountered by his readers before. It was educational, if you had a dictionary handy, but because this quirk of his was used judiciously, (one might say conservatively), it was forgiven. Mr. Johnson, obviously a fine scholar with a great education, who has rubbed shoulders with some of the best thinkers of the 20th century, has the Buckley flaw, but to a fault. It seemed that a word or a foreign phrase which baffled me popped up 300 times. I have four years of college and I'm not inexperienced in the world at age 63, (as of yesterday) but I found this word-dropping to be offensive. The one time I ever saw Bill Buckley in person, he did his trick in a way that also offended me: The week of Martin Luther King's murder I saw Buckley in a debate on civil rights with Julian Bond at Vanderbilt University, and Buckley, referring to the assassination, called it a "regicide" which was too cute by half, and should have been resisted by such a disciplined man. Johnson almost goes that far as well. One learns a great deal about the famous and the relatively famous thinkers and creators he profiles between these covers, but his prose style is cumbersome, and his attitude tedious. It took me weeks to read this, because I was only content with putting up with the book for four or five pages at a sitting. I know a lot more about the subjects of this volume now, but I also know a lot more about its author, and that makes me little interested in his other works.

If in a previous work 'Intellectuals' Johnson was all acid in criticizing those who in his phrase ' put ideas before people'.In this work he is all sweetness in praising great creators who as he sees it ' people before ideas'. Johnson's praise of creation however is not confined to those we normally think of creators. Like the great American pragmatist thinkers he sees ' creation' as an inherent part of human everyday life. Furthermore he gives this concept a religious grounding, by speaking of the idea that God the Creator wishes human beings to be creators also. This idea is Biblically derived, and is a reflection of Johnson's own religious view.
In the opening chapter Johnson commends creators for their courage in overcoming adversities, for their persistence against rejection of many kinds. He writes, " What strikes me, surveying the history of creativity, is how little fertile and productive people often received in the way of honors, money or anything else." He gives the example of Vermeer whose great dedication and hard work did succeed in lifting his family from poverty. He says that Bach and Mozart too never really had full financial security despite their enormous productive efforts.
Johnson is an especial chamption of prolific, hard- working creators. His opening chapter is on Chaucer who virtually invents the modern English language and literature. He then writes of Durer one of those artists who was always learning, expanding and developing his powers in new areas. His third chapter is devoted to Shakespeare who Johnson calls " the most creative personality in human history" Johnson makes studies of two great Shakespeare characters Falstaff and Hamlet. Johnson focuses on the new phrases and words Shakespeare has given to the language. He emphasizes the speed and variety of Shakespeare's creation, the tremendous insight into human life and character. He sees Hamlet as a kind of deep thinker whose reflections throw light on every important aspect of human existence.
If Johnson points to Shakespeare as proof that the great creator can come from anywhere is in no way dependent on high origins- then he in his next chapter on Bach focuses on the opposite aspect, the genetic component. He writes of the Bach family which for three hundred years from the age of Luther to the age of Bismarck were at the heart of German music. Bach is praised not only for his hardworking dedication, but for his enormous originality- his creating in every music form known at the time ( except Opera) and expanding the dimensions and scope of each form.
In the chapter on Turner and Hokusai Johnson writes of creators who did not go outside their own form of creation- who were wholly dedicated to it. "Turner transformed landscape , during his lifetime into the greatest of visual arts,and left the world of painting permanently changed- indeed artists all over the world are still learning from him ..... Hokusai in effect created Japanese landscape painting from nothing, but he also portrayed Japanese life in the first half of the nineteenth century with dazzling graphic skill and an encyclopedia completeness that have never been equaled anywhere"
In his chapter on Jane Austen Johnson focuses on the special difficulties women have had historically in attempting to be creators.He points out that most women were simply barred by their families from any creative endeavor. He tells in a few especially instructive pages the story of George Eliot, who was at the outset something of a rejected if not ugly, then very plain 'duckling'. With the years ' she was increasingly recognized not only as a storyteller of extraordinary gifts but as moral mentor of formidable power. Polite society , far from shutting her out, queued up at her door and was often refused admittance." Jane Austen, Johnson indicates did not have anything like Eliot's success in her own lifetime, but her books are far more widely read today. Johnson points to her early elegance, self- confidence and ebullience in writing. Johnson sees her great transformation coming when she looked into the Romantic novels of her own day, and understood that she could do far better than them."Quite naturally, she perceived that real life , as she knew it from personal experience , was much more fun to write about than impossible adventures of which she knew nothing." Johnson laments her early death and puts her with those creators Keats, Shelley, Mozart, Weber, Girtin, Gericault, Bonningon who died young and left many with a longing for works of theirs which would never be. Johnson also writes of the architects A.W.N. Pugin and Viollet- le-Duc, of Victor Hugo, Mark Twain (For Johnson 'humor'is one of the greatest of all creative gifts) Tiffany, T.S. Eliot, Picasso and Walt Disney.
This is a wonderfully entertaining book. It is centered on a 'positive' subject most people I suspect are happy to read and learn more about . However here I would register one note, if not of dissent, then of reservation.
In his opening chapter Johnson writes of the great creative power of Wagner's operas. Johnson ignores however their evil and destructive ideology- He ignores the fact that great creators have often been evil people. He ignores too the fact that 'destruction is inherent in certain kinds of creation'.And great creators are often those with a kind of overriding ambition, a kind of Faustian hunger that means their creation brings with it great destruction.
The subject is darker than his list of creative heroes indicates. There is a whole literature from Rudolf Wittkauer to Kay Redfield -Jamison on the saturnic, dark, depressive force behind much great creation. And many many of the greatest creators were not the kind of sensible, practical productive businesslike figures Johnson praises. Consider
Johnson as religious believer does not really raise the question of why great creative gift and powers are sometimes given by God to evil people.
In his final chapter he speaks briefly about scientific and technological discovery as creative work. He cites Humphrey Davy's invention of the safety- mask for miners, and the over one thousand inventions of the greatest inventor of all , Edison. But he does not talk about Newton and Einstein. And he does not even begin to point out how scientific and technical creation are at the heart of so many dilemnas, including 'survival' facing Mankind today. In other words here too the darker sides, the more problematic sides of 'creation' are not considered.
Again though, despite these reservations, this is an exceptionally instructive and enjoyable work.

I'm reasonably certain I qualify as the intended audience for this book. Relatively conservative, relatively well-read, a skeptic and a bit of a iconoclast. Should be a sympathetic reader. Yet I found it tedious and frustrating. Between his repeated braggadoccio and the lightweight analysis, I was generally disappointed. My son called him a pompous blowhard for his small, but endlessly annoying, autobiographical snippets. For instance, like Durer, he always travels with his watercolors. Cool! He recalls that memorable evening when he, C. S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien were wrestling with an Eliot poem, and the day he remarked to Anthony Powell.....well, you get the idea. How about that untranslated French? (Sorry, Paul, I'm a mere monolingual dummy.) And the one that nearly sent me screaming into the night, when referring to Pride and Prejudice, he let this fly: "to many, though not to the most discerning, her greatest achievement." Whom is he including in that rarefied group do you think? Ultimately, Paul Johnson reminded me of the Oscar Wilde wannabes I all too frequently met while I was studying in Oxford. Cape, beret, French cigarettes, often with a holder!, and a bon mot for every occasion. Their goal in life was to prove they knew your speciality more thoroughly than you did. I soon learned to recognize their uniform and flee them as I would a man in a white robe and pointy hood.

Paul Johnson is a well-educated man with a breadth of knowledge I could never hope to match. He has read everything, seen paintings everywhere (documenting his worldwide travels while doing so...why did he tell me where these are other than to brag?) and listened carefully to an astounding collection of music. But he brings little real insight to the creative process, other than that these folks all worked very hard. Painted or wrote or read or sewed, they spent years practicing and honing and reworking. But I wonder if another book could be written about creative people who do not fit this mold, massively fertile artists who squandered their time in alcohol or drugs and yet climbed out periodically to produce something majestic.

Bach came from a musical family and worked hard. Genetics were helpful claims Mr. Johnson. But were they? Both Haydns came from a non-musical family and achieved a bit of musical success as well. So what role does genetics play? It varies.... How about education? Well, Eliot had it in spades, but Austen and Dickens did not. Some read endlessly, some not at all. Does it matter? Or how about genius? Are the most creative people the smartest? Slam dunk, right? Well, not quite. Victor Hugo was a dunce, a fool, a lecherous old man (and a lecherous young man as well.) Yet he managed to write books that will last far beyond the scribblings of men far more brilliant. So the conclusion seems to be that creativity comes from lots of different kinds of folks, living lots of different kinds of lives. Didn't need a whole book for that. When there is a heartfelt response to a great work of art, there are tears, or that mysterious welling, or overwhelming joy. I never felt that in this book. Paul Johnson failed to communicate how these masters managed to get their audiences to experience that. Clinical, straightforward, full of copious information, but little insight. Read or listen to the creators themselves. Far more enjoyable.

You are probably better off buying something a textbook from the Norton. Because
1. The editor is biased again women and minority poets. To quote Cary Nelson in the Virginia Quarterly Review,
"If Bloom's wholesale elimination of poems by women and minorities is disgusting and deplorable, however, it is not especially interesting. It is simply part of the conservative backlash against muticulturalism."
2. He is a conservative who does not like modern experimentation.
3. He is biased against poems that show the ugly side of life (ex. war poems, poems about protest or violence).
4. He flatly rejects some of the best poems in history that pushed the limits of the English language.
5. His idea of the Sublime idea is still stuck in early part of the 19th century.

Mr. Bloom, you disappoint me.

So go please and find some true poetry. There's a whole WORLD out there.

I can't say I buy many anthologies of poetry; instead, I prefer to buy the collected works of poets I find interesting or about whom I am curious. This one, however, caught my eye. I have read other works by Bloom, including the WESTERN CANON, and I figured I'd see what he has to say about these poets.

The title should be taken tongue-in-cheek. Any selection of poetry is going to be highly subjective, especially when it is proclaimed to be THE BEST. Those criticizing the exclusion of certain poets are a bit off in their criticism; this is BLOOM'S selection of the best, and no other man's selection of the best poetry is going to be the same as yours, mine, or the dude who lives at the end of the street's.

You may ask, then: why should we care? The answer lies partly in Bloom's criticism, and partly because Bloom's erudition lends itself well to such anthologies.

By the first, I mean that his criticism is good. Not great; good. There are certainly sparks of illumination herein--I found the sections on Spenser, Wordsworth, and a few others particularly good--but in general it is pretty superficial, in the sense that his criticism does not delve very deep into any one poem or another (with the exception of maybe the FAERIE QUEENE, though no work of criticism can go deep enough into that!). Bloom instead prefers to skate along the surface of the poems, but, in so doing, he makes this a very readable and interesting volume, especially for the non-professional.

The second point, on his erudition, is valid because Bloom presents us with some very unknown and forgotten poets who are truly worth remembering. The standard greats are almost all there, but the real gems often lie in the unknowns.

If you are a professor, or somebody particularly well-read in poetry, it is only this last point that will be of value to you. For those of us who are neither (I'm relatively well-read in poetry, but by no means an expert!), Bloom's work is well worth picking up.

Harold Bloom is arguably the greatest living literary critic, a worthy heir to his own great mentors Samuel Johnson, F.C. Bradley, M.H.Abrams and Northrop Frye. Bloom forced to slowdown from composition of his own works while recovering for twenty-months from a triple- bypass put together this anthology of what he regards to be as the greatest poems in the English language. The work it should be noted does not include twentieth century works in part because Bloom believes there are so many fine poets in the twentieth - century it would be almost impossible to do this. He also hoped to avoid the kind of battles he has long been familiar with in which the 'politically correct' issues enter. Bloom makes it clear that those kind of ethnic, gender,sexual orientation issues and other what he calls 'irrelevancies' have nothing to do with the selections he makes in this work. His criteria are in his own words, " The standards of judgment which matter to me,are cognitive achievement, aesthetic splendor, and wisdom: only those three."
So what he provides Chaucer to Hart Crane are by and large selections from the standard canon of English poetry. He also provides a thirty-page introduction on how to read poetry, biographical sketches, and commentary on the poems. Bloom is a tough but loving critic, for whom agon and agony go with his whole understanding of the poetry- making process. The whole business of succeeding poets seeing their predecessors as rivals who they first admire and then must misread to overcome and distinguish themselves from is at the heart of his vision of poetry. But Bloom is also an extremely broad- minded, generous and appreciative reader. His passion for poetry is felt in the commentary, and his life- long dedication sensed in his championing of the selections. It is fitting that the last poet included in the volume is Hart Crane (b. 1899) for it is with a volume of his 'White Bridges' that the then twelve - year old Harold Bloom discovered his love of poetry, and his desire to devote his life to the reading and writing of it. As a great and perhaps unequalled reader, perhaps in terms of his mastery of the whole text of poetic literature the all - time master Bloom transmits to us in love the works he , and it is fair to say most general readers of poetry, have most loved .

A book to buy and read for anyone interested at all in the highest arts of the written English language. Dr. Bloom, a person with a higher level of knowledge and pure intellect than almost all, has brought together many of the great poems of our civilization. While I did not understand all he said in his introductions, there is no doubt he is a treasure of our society.

I am not someone who normally reads poetry. This book gave me access to works by poets (many I had not even heard of) that I would never have read otherwise---which would have been my sad loss.

This work is entirely self-indulgent as are most works of literature and criticism. As Bloom points out in his intorductory essay, this is the collection of poetry he wishes he had always owned. Therefore, if you share a similar taste in poetry as Bloom then this is a necessary anthology. If I were teaching a poetry course this year I would use this anthology.

As a great fan of medieval mysteries, I was compelled to read this one by Amy Coffin's very favorable review on her website, The Book Haven. I found this book to be exciting, gripping, and fascinating in what it reveals about the history of the period which gave rise to Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES.

The story is woven around a tangle of political intrigue, religious rivalry, and well-drawn, complex characters. Geoffrey Chaucer finds himself accused of a murder he didn't commit, and must call upon his friends in high places to give him a chance to discover the true killer.

If you enjoy the works of Michael Jecks, Kate Sedley and Candace Robb, give Mary Devlin a try. You'll be glad you did!

Sorry, but I was very disappointed. I read the glowing reviews, and as a medieval mystery addict and Chaucer fan, I was really looking forward to it. However, I found the level of writing to be mediocre. Having read the Canterbury Tales, I found the author's re-tellings very dull. Certainly not worth $[price].

This book is written in an irritating jump-around style, with pilgrim's tales roughly woven into the storyline in such a fashion that the reader is tempted to skip to the last pages to read the end. Also, Chaucer and some of the other characters spend so much time crying that the storyline becomes tedious. This author was clearly inspred by P.C. Doherty...and proves that inspiration alone isn't adequate!

"Murder on the Canterbury Pilgrimage" is a delightful addition to the growing canon of medieval mysteries. Ever since Umberto Eco wrote his brilliant "Name of the Rose", followed by Ellis Peters with her Brother Cadfael series, the idea of the medieval sleuth solving crimes in the face of superstition has become increasingly popular.

Ms. Devlin gives a new twist to the genre in introducing none other than Geoffrey Chaucer as the the protagonist. And what a perfect choice he is! Writer, spy, astrologer, and keen observer of human nature, Chaucer is just the man to solve the mystery of who murdered the gypsy Sophia, en route to Canterbury.

This book, in addition to giving us a wonderful mystery, also does a fine job of setting Chaucer in the context of his time, and making his world come alive. I've always felt that historical figures can be understood better if one has some insight into their culture, whether it be medieval, Roman, Victorian, etc.

A book such as this is the perfect way to create a vivid picture of Chaucer's world, which the author has done very well. I would compare Devlin's novel favorably to the marvelous Nicholas Bracewell mysteries by Edward Marston, set in the London theater scene of the 1590s. Both make the past come alive with real people (even in fiction).

A highly recommended read!

Set in England during the late 1300s, "Murder on the Canterbury Pilgrimage" begins with a group destined for the Canterbury Cathedral, to pay homage to the Christian shrine of St. Thomas Becket. Among the group is Geoffrey Chaucer, a famous English poet and an employee of King Richard II. Although Geoffrey isn't a fictitious character, the mystery he sets out to uncover is. It was never proven he was a detective, but his interests in occult practices--such as astrology and Tarot card reading--certainly are relevant, proving to be just as useful as the clues he finds.

The mystery begins when a young gypsy woman (Sophia) is found stabbed in the heart while asleep in her bed. The initial suspect is Jack the summoner, who vanishes shortly after Sophia's death. However, there are others who are just as liable to be the killer: Sir Richard de Burgoyne, who strongly discouraged his son Simon from associating with Sophia; the jealous friar Sophia had flirted with; even Geoffrey himself. After all, it was his Tarot card that was found next to Sophia's body.

Out of desperation to clear his name, Geoffrey contacts a good friend of his: John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. With his help--as well as that from a few other pilgrims--,they begin to unravel Sophia's mysterious past and her connection to the Church, discovering an evil brotherhood that will do anything to preserve the sanctity of the Roman Catholic Church.

Even though I'm not familiar with the Middle Ages, I thoroughly enjoyed this timeless tale of corrupt clergy and the unconventional methods of profiling Sophia's killer. Not to missed if you like medieval mysteries.

The Canterbury Tales have always been on the "should-have" list for me, but except when compelled by a rigorous English class, I've avoided them. Only the memory of the adulterous Alison and her mischief stuck with me.

This book has rekindled my interest in reading The Canterbury Tales, for three reasons:

1. It balances the middle English quotations with several different editions and citations, so that I could actually pick an edition I'd probably like and read. How can I not like a work that features, and skewers, adultery, cheating, high-minded hypocrisy, and avarice in all its forms--and tunes my ear to my own native tongue, to boot?

2. West's thin and few references to Chaucer's biographical details hold the story together just enough to provide context for his contention about Chaucer's eminence in inventing English, an accolade often awarded to Shakespeare. What West has offered is not a biography of Chaucer, but a biography of English language development in the context of then-recent historical events. West offers some provocative thoughts about why Chaucer elected to tell the tale as he did. I agree with some, disagree with others, but West has made me think about what I took for granted.

3. I've never felt comfortable with the argument raging today about "dead white males" and why we study them, although I can see reason on both sides. West's overall achievement in this book justifies why Chaucer merits study--regardless of his sex, race, and national origin.

This won't satisfy if you need a biography, but if you've been frustrated by the middle English of The Canterbury Tales, this is an excellent guidebook to many very good translations--and to the Tales themselves.

The title is a little misleading. West does not focus on many of the more mundane aspects of Chaucer's life, nor does he spend much time in biographical matters (of which we know little). Rather, "Chaucer" is a wonderful introduction to the cultural and literary settings in which the great poet wrote.

West's "Chaucer" is an engaging introduction to the works of the man--great for beginners--but is not an academic work, or even a thorough, critical analysis on Chaucer's writings.

We know more about Chaucer than Shakespeare. Sure, Will gets all the press and accolades for his works in Modern English. "Modern", relative to Chaucer, anyway. Today's average reader can still dope out the Elizabethan English, even if he has to keep a dictionary handy or read a few footnotes. But reading Chaucer in the original idiom of "Middle" English requires extensive aids, such as a modern translation or enrollment in an upper-level college class.

Thus, other than the Prologue and maybe a Canterbury Tale or two (esp. the Miller's Tale), Chaucer is underappreciated as a writer whose works survived 600 years.

But Chaucer deserves a lot of literary credit as well. Chaucer, for example, set the stage for the modern novel. He was, to quote the author, "not just a pioneer but part of mainstream of European literature. . . [Chaucer] became a model or inspiration to subsequent poets, esp. Shakespeare. Troilus [and Cressida], even more than Canterbury Tales, allows us to think of Chaucer as a pioneer of the novel."

Readers of West's book will appreciate Chaucer as an innovator of the written word. In addition, the reader will learn a great deal about Chaucer's cultural and historical milieu. There are chapters dealing with the Black Plague and the Civil War of his time. Interestingly, the Plague seems less important, notwithstanding the opinion of another historian, Barbara Tuchmann.

Chaucer's life was intertwined with Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V, whose lives were put on stage by the greatest playwright of all time who put these words in the mouth of Chaucer's patron, "Old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster": "For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light."

Perhaps he had Chaucer in mind.

While the author writes well and entertainingly, I had made the fatal assumption when I ordered this book that something subtitled <> would, in fact, discuss his life.

However, the book mentions Chaucer's wife only once in the main text, plus a mention in the chronology -- and doesn't even acknowledge that Chaucer had three known children, let alone discuss them -- though he does have a one-liner about the birth of Thomas Chaucer in the chronology. The cbronology, BTW, says Thomas was the first-born. An old book (1970s) I have says the first-born was Elizabeth. If that's been discredited, a short paragraph would have been most useful.

A book which omits the most important people in a subject's life is, to my mind, most definitely not a <> The omission is, for me, most frustrating, because there is or was a controversy about the paternity of Thomas Chaucer and perhaps Elizabeth on which I assumed this book would provide the latest insights.

I gave up about halfway through. IMO, the real subject of this book is a lengthy backgrounder on Chaucer's poetry. When my interest in what influenced Chaucer revives (as it frequently does), perhaps I'll give it another try.

Chaucer: 1340-1400, The Life And Times Of The First English Poet is an engaging new portrait of the life and times of Geoffrey Chaucer whose career included courtly offices situated him at the center of cultural activity in medieval London, and whose poetry became a primary force in the evolution of modern English. Richard West is a distinguished journalist who has meticulously researched Chaucer's life and blends biography with history and literary criticism into a coherent presentation of a literary genius who survived the Black Death as a child, fought in France during the Hundred Years War, was a diplomat to Italy, served in the English court during the Peasants' Revolt and murder of Richard II -- and whose central work, The Canterbury Tales, illuminated the nature of human life in the Middle Ages in such a way as to capture the respect and attention of readers for more than six hundred years. Highly recommended, essential reading for students of Chaucer and his writings.

I agree with previous reviewers--this edition has become far too expensive. A few years ago I was THRILLED to discover such a fabulous text, lighter than the Riverside (I ruined my knees carrying that thing around as an undergrad), for only 40 dollars. It became my standard teaching text. And now suddenly it's up to sixty-two? Houghton Mifflin has obviously been taking some lessons from Harry Bailey.

As a college teacher, I love this text, but also won't assign it because it is too expensive. It is virtually the same price as the complete Oxford Riverside Chaucer.

In Chaucer's work, 'The Canterbury Tales', perhaps the greatest of English literary works from the period of the language known as Middle English, there is one particular piece that have always stood out for me.

'A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also,'

This is perhaps my favourite character, as when I first read it, it seemed to epitomise what I hoped for in my own life.

'That unto logik hadde longe y-go.
....
For him was lever have at his beddes heed
Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed,

Of Aristotle and his philosophye,
Than robes riche, of fithele, or gay sautrye,
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre,
But al that he mighte of his freendes hente,
On bokes and on lerninge he it spente,
and bisily gan for the soules preye
Of hem that yaf him wherwith to scoleye.
....
...gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.'

Every now and then I cannot help but re-read this part of the Prologue, for a reminder of what I'm aiming for in my own life.

Chaucer was son of a wine merchant, something near and dear to my heart. Chaucer was well-read, well-phrased, well-mannered, industrious in literary and legal/administrative pursuits, as I trust I will become, if not already so qualified.

As one can see from the above examples, English has changed much over the past 600 years, but not so much as to make these passages unrecognisable. Compare for yourself with a modern translation, and see how much you can decipher.

Chaucer is one of the first great English authors of name; most (but not all) literary output in English prior to this time was anonymous. Living in the 1300s, he held administrative posts of importance under Kings from the time of Edward III to Henry IV. Never one to shrink from spending too much money (he had to reapply for pensions and ask for advances several times in his life) or shying away from controversy (he fell out of and came back into favour several times). When he died, he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, in a section on the south side that has since become Poet's Corner, largely due to Chaucer, the first great English poet, having been buried there.

In addition to his magnus opus, 'The Canterbury Tales', a collection of stories with prologue told by pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury (car radios and in-flight movies were rare in those days), Chaucer wrote minor poems to suit various occasions (his first record as poet comes from having written a poem as elegy on the death of John of Gaunt's first wife, Blanche, in 1369), and the major work for which he was noted for 'Troilus and Criseyde', which showed his sense of humour, power of observation and attention to detail, and keen dramatic skills in language. This work is often compared to Dante and Boccaccio, perhaps the most famous poets of the day. 'The Canterbury Tales' is actually intended to be much longer - 120 tales told by 30 pilgrims (two each on the way to Canterbury, and two each returning). As it is, there are only 24 tales plus a prologue - had it been completed, it would be by far the longest poem in the English language.

There is a strong, practical side to Chaucer's writing, sophisticated yet not aloof and removed from the affairs of the world, cultured yet in tune with the better (and more interesting) aspects of the common people, too.

This edition by Larry Benson is designed for those who only want the Canterbury Tales, not the other writings of Chaucer, but want a set of the complete tales and prologue from standard texts. This comes from the Riverside Chaucer, with introductory notes explaining plot, versification, and various issues that might arise in the translation of the tales. The indexes include one for proper names. There is also a timeline showing Chaucer's life that is handy for students.

For those who want the Canterbury Tales in good form, this is a good volume to get.

This edition of the Canterbury Tales, edited by Larry Benson, is superb. It is based on the Riverside Chaucer, Third Edition (also edited by Benson) and is as authoritative as you can get. It's greatest attribute is the presentation of a highly readable text that will be appreciated by scholars and lovers of Chaucer of all levels. It's beautifully glossed, but in an unobtrusive manner that allows the language to sing off the page without any unneccesary interruptions; the copious (and useful) vocab and grammar notes are clearly marked by line and placed below the body text, thus one can read (aloud preferably!) at one's own pace without being constantly interrupted. The placement and economy of the notes also makes for a clear presentation and a great reading text that allows one to approach the Tales at one's own pace. Highly informative and entertaining essays on Chaucer's life, outlining the history and conext in which he lived and wrote, and on the language and versification of the Tales introduce the volume and provide an excellent jumping off point into the them. The latter essay is a decent - albeit brief - introduction to reading and pronounciation of the Middle English that Chaucer employs in the Tales, but it is far from comprehensive in that it confines its survey to just the Tales. Although covering only the most basic elements thereof while paying scant attention to the nuances of inflection and grammar (and, again, variations and specifics of Middle English in general and Chaucer's language in his other works), it is still a great gateway, especially for the novice reader of Chaucer who wishes to engage the author and the work in their original vernacular. And this is really where this edition acheives - it presents a highly readable and accesible version of Chaucer's masterpiece and allows readers of all levels to approach the poem(s) on their own terms, unencumbered by an intrusive or burdensome sholarly apparatus. In other words, one can approach the Tales with just enough context, historically and linguistically, to engage with it in a manner as close to possible as a fluent reader of Middle English would have. And the perfect balance between inspiring the novice reader to venture forth independently and the superior guidance that is readily available with just a quick glance toward the bottom of the page, will undoubtadly improve one's reading and comprehension of Middle English. Scholars of all levels will appreciate and enjoy this edition. Larry Benson (still teaching at Harvard, by the way) is one of the great Chaucerians and has given us one of the best editions of Chaucer available - one that is equally beneficial and interesting to both the student and the layman. The point is, you can't outgrow this one. If anything, you can grow into it. What more could one want?

Based on the Riverside Chaucer, this edition is the critical text of Chaucer's *Canterbury Tales.* It is accompanied by glosses of the Middle English at the bottom of the page, a useful glossary, and explanatory notes that guide the reader to further criticism. All of the above make it a good trustworthy teaching text as well as a resource for the serious amateur reader who wants to get to know Chaucer's most famous poem in its own language.

The price of the book, however, is a scandal. I teach Chaucer, and I'm embarrassed to assign a flimsy paperback like this to my students, expecting them to pay $55 for it. If perchance someone from Houghton Mifflin ever happens to read this review, please revisit the question of how you price textbooks like this one. Next time around I'm planning to use the Norton Critical edition; it may not have all twenty-four tales (it has fifteen), but the glosses are better, and it also includes a rich offering of primary contexts (Boccaccio, Petrarch, the Romance of the Rose, etc.) and criticism. And it costs less than $15.

Why read Chaucer? Well, in the first place for the beauty and masculine vigor of his English, an English one soon catches on to after a bit of practice. Why else? Well, because Chaucer was intensely human and his stories are interesting, and are either truly poignant or richly comic and sometimes even both. Also for the rich gallery of unforgettable human types his stories bring before us.

Of course, Chaucer isn't for everyone. Those with no feeling for his language and no sense of humor, and whose own humanity is not their strongest point, may lack what is needed to appreciate Chaucer at his true worth.

And in the presence of critical editions such as the present one, there is a danger of forgetting that so much of Chaucer's power is in the sheer music of his lines. Those new to Chaucer would be well advised to learn how to read Middle English _aloud_ as soon as possible by listening to one of the many excellent recordings. If they were to do this they'd soon find their pleasure in Chaucer magnified enormously.

Excellent background materials. The price is right for most college students. The vast chronological distance between ourselves and Chaucer demands that we learn more of his world than we do of contemporary writers and the selections of Boccaccio go a long way toward facilitating this. Much more has to be asked of students than to merely put Chaucer into one's own words. We need to ask why Chaucer would want to put these words to paper. And this edition can get that process of historical investigation going.

This edition is designed for those coming to the Middle English for the first time. All the difficulties are glossed, usually on the same line in italics. Far more glossing than any other edition. The spelling has also been regularized so that the same word is spelt the same each time. There are other aids as well: past participles are set as y-clept not yclept, and there are footnotes for particularly difficult lines.

While this is a wonder of words, a piece completely in poetry form, this is perhaps the worst book I have ever read. Unless you are a lit major or have a lot of free time on your hands and can sit through pointless speeches consisting of endless pointless description, buy anything else.

Rather than read selections from the Canterbury Tales in a modern English translation, the beginning reader of medieval literature would do much better to read this attractive and well glossed edition of the original. The carefully chosen background materials also , esp. the primary texts, usefully orient the reader in Chaucer's contemporary literary and ideological tradtions. Chaucer is a magnificent poet; he is a master storyteller, funny, humble, complex. Chaucer gives Shakespeare a run for his money.

I thought the book was outstanding. Until I got to literally the last page and realized something very, very important was missing. As they say in movie and TV reviews Spoiler Alert!! On that last page she observes that a look at the pieces of Hitler's skull establishes that he could not have shot himself. That is when I realized that missing from the book was even a semi-comprehensive autopsy of Hitler. There is great concentration on the teeth which are used to prove that the bodies are Hitler's and the Mrs. But at no point I could find was there any material to show that the two parts of the skull went together and it is certainly not obvious from the pictures. It is also notable that a cursory autopsy was done on the German Shepard, presumably Blondi. I really can not see the Russians doing a autopsy on an dog and not on Hitler and the rest. I think someone has swept the file a bit before these gentlemen got there. Other than that disappointment, outstanding!

Very interesting, though dry. This book provides some interesting facts for this period of history. Problem area is
the read is a bit dull, and drawn out.

I have only two problems with this otherwise excellent book:

First is the sub-title, 'Last Great Secret.' It's really hard to say convincingly that this is the last secret. It seems that all the time more secrets are being found. And I can think of some other things that should be in the KGB files that haven't been reported yet. For instance, what were the Russian code breaking efforts.

The second problem is admitted on page 11 of this book. Much of the information contained in the book comes from the Soviet interrogation of captured Germans who had been close to Hitler in the bunker. It was in their interest to tell their captors what they wanted to hear. And under questioning by the KGB who knows what was done to them. 'The Hitler Book' covers much of this same subject and the diligent reader will want to read both as they present a different slant.

The Russian forces captured Berlin, and immediately began an investigation as to Hitler's last days. They compiled a great deal of forensic evidence, reports of which are included here. In fact, most of the book is in the form of reports of one kind and another. This book appears to be about as close to the original source material as can be found without the ability to read Russian.

V.K. Vinogradov, et.al.'s HITLER'S DEATH: RUSSIA'S LAST GREAT SECRET FROM THE FILES OF THE KGB is a 'must' for any scholarly collection specializing in World War II history. It solves one of the greatest mysteries of the war, using previously unpublished top secret documents and images from KGB archives to present new evidence from Hitler's inner circle, testimony from Germans and Russians who participated in the final battle, and evidence from those sent to arrest Hitler. Verbatim records of the interrogation of survivors blend with internal reports to Stalin and more to penetrate the cloak of secrecy and recreate Hitler's last days.

Recent history is always the most fresh in any person's mind and the events which led to the rise and fall of Nazi Germany remain as fresh today as they ever were for many people - even for those who were born after the war was finally over and simply grew up in it's aftermath. No other person from that time was ever more hated than Adolph Hitler and, for far too long, specific details and facts about his death have always seemed to raise more questions than answers. Not any more.

Now that the former Soviet Union is gone, the new Russia is slowly opening her doors - and her archives!, to reveal what was formerly the country's most guarded secrets. With Russian troops being the first the storm the Reichstag, it was to Stalin that all papers and diaries recovered from that building were delivered and, until recently, the world's historians had been denied access.

Now, those historians and writers have been allowed sight of the most telling documents about the final days of Nazism. In this book, we are treated to a compilation of evidence about Hitler's death unlike anything which has gone before. Evidence such as that from Hitler's own closest inner circle, reports made by the Russians and Germans who took part in that final battle, detailed accounts from those who were sent to arrest the Fuhrer, records of the interrogation of those who survived Hitler's Bunker, Martin Bormann's entire diary of the time and more besides.

Many people dismiss Adolph Hitler as a madman. Perhaps he was - but maybe that answer is just too simple. One thing is for certain, to read this book is to answer almost every single nagging question that was there before it was published.

An excellent job of research.

NM

As an undergraduate my Chaucer lecturer began his lectures on 'The Knight's Tale' with a ringing (and unconvincing) denunciation of Terry Jones' thesis. If his intention was to discourage us from believing Jones, he failed. Several of us raced to the library to get our hands on Jones' book and I remember reading it eagerly and finding it entirely convincing.

Years later, with a great deal more experience in litrary analysis and a far greater knowledge of Chaucer under my belt, I re-read Jones and was surprised to find his thesis rathe more threadbare. It is still a provocative and entertaining book, and one which shook up the usually somnolent field of Chaucer studies, but his central thesis simply doesn't stand up to detailed scrutiny. His work has some serious and ultimately fatal flaws.

Firstly, Jones argues we should not just look at where the Knight fought, but where he didn't fight. Why no mention of him fighting in France like a good English knight? He must, argues Jones, be a mercenary. But it's hard to see how Chaucer could be indicating this with a list of *Crusading* campaigns. The heartlands of mercenary activity in the 14th Century were in the endless wars in Italy, so why doesn't Chaucer have his mercenary knight fighting there? Jones himself constantly refers to examples of mercenaries in Italy to illustrate many of his points, but never explains why this supposedly archetypal mercenary didn't campaign there.

Secondly, Jones goes to great lengths to argue that the crusades the Knight took part in were not noble, chivalric and virtuous ventures, but actually grubby, savage and often futile affairs. This may be true from a modern person's perspective, but what Jones (who has an admitted anti-Church bias) thinks about these campaigns is irrelevant - it's how they were seen in Chaucer's time that is important. And, unfortunately for Jones' thesis, in Chaucer's time they simply *were* seen as noble, chivalric and virtuous ventures.

Thirdly, Jones devotes a great deal of attention to the Knight's appearance, saying this is an obvious clue to his mercenary status. "One might expect a glorious figure in shining armour, with banners flying, a dragon on his shield and a crested helm glinting in the sun.' he argues. Instead, we have a figure in a fustian gypon stained with rust. Again, this argument is weak. A chivalric paragon may have worn armour and carried banners on campaign, but the Knight was on a pilgrimage. He goes on to argue that the Knight's fustian 'gypon' is a sign that the Knight is poor and that it is stained by his mail 'habergeon' because, unlike a real knight, he doesn't wear a coat of plates or breastplate and fauld over his mail and under his gypon or surcoat. He goes on to present evidence that Italian mercenaries went into battle more lightly armed in this manner, but that some form of plate over the mail shirt was ubiquitous for knights in this period. But Jones is simply wrong on that last point, however, and the Alliterative Morte Arthur depicts an arming scene where no less a chivalric paragon than King Arthur himself wears a gypon directly over his mail.

Fourthly, Jones completely ignores the Squire, who is the Knight's son and whose description follows that of the Knight in the 'General Prologue'. In stark contrast to his father, the Squire is presented as fashionably and brightly dressed in the latest style, with great emphasis on his up to-date hairstyle and courtly manners. Unlike his father, the younger man has fought not for the sake of Christendom, but 'in hope to stonden in his lady grace.' (GP l. 88). His campaign was 'in Flaundres, in Artoys and Pycardie' (GP l. 86) - most probably a reference to the 'Pseudo-crusade' of Bishop Henry Despencer in 1383. Unlike his father's crusading campaigns, the Squire took part in one that was widely condemned at the time and regarded as a debasement of the crusading ideal. Jones argues that Chaucer tends to be wry and satirical in his characterisation, but forgets that three of his characters - the Knight, the Parson and the Ploughman - seem to be paragons representing the Three Estates, while it is the *other* characters who stand in satirical relation to them.

Jones' book is provocative and highly readable, but in many places it seems he is straining to find something - anything - to support his ideas while skating over alternative interpretations. For this reason (and not academic snobbery) his thesis has been largely rejected, though his book has been welcomed. This book is recommended, but it should be read with due caution.

This is an epic diagnosis of a character in Chaucer's Canterberry Tales. Not for the casual reader, this in depth study of the character and his times is done in a professional (non comedic)manner.

I have been teaching Chaucer for over ten years and believe Jones' book on Chaucer's knight to be an excellent example of literary criticism that debunks the standard view of Chaucer's knight. I am surprised that I have such difficulty finding the book. One would think that it would be available for every student studying Chaucer. As the first character in the prologue, the understanding of the knight sets the tone for the entire work. Jones' research enticed me to do some research on my own. His book made me look at the other characters with a jaundiced eye, and I found the entire work of The Canterbury Tales to be a medieval version of "Saturday Night Live." I am now in love with Chaucer because of Jones. The book is worth the read for any student studying Chaucer. Jones makes the medieval world come alive with solid facts to support his perspective.

Terry Jones reveals Chaucer's Knight to be a Thug-for-Hire. He cogently explains the historical background, the concept of "chivalrie" in the 14th century, and in his own words, explains a 600 year old joke. The book is written with both style and wit. It is on solid ground for the most part, but does omit some data about the Knight's contemporaries, some of which behaved just as disgracefully but were members of the leading nobility rather than ignoble mercenaries.

A summary:

English teachers universally take the description "Parfit Gentle Knight" at face value. Chaucer's contemporaries would have had quite a different view.

A good analagy: what would someone in 2600 make of the following description of a "Good 20th Century Soldier".

*Being "Highly decorated", with both the Silver Star and Order of Lenin.

*Having more kills than any other sniper in Sarajevo or Beirut.

*With being there when Kuwait City was won, and having brought back much loot to Baghdad than anyone else.

*Wearing an unidentifiable uniform with no rank or army insignia, and carrying a Chinese-made AK-47 loaded with dum-dum bullets and no serial number.

*Being an expert Boxer, who's killed every opponent who faced him in the ring.

*And he's served in more places than any other soldier, in Colombia, Chechnya, the Golden Triangle and the Ivory Coast.

A must-read for anyone studying Chaucer.