A lively micro-biography of Chaucer that tells the story of the tumultuous year that led to the creation of The Canterbury Tales

In 1386, Geoffrey Chaucer endured his worst year, but began his best poem. The father of English literature did not enjoy in his lifetime the literary celebrity that he has
today-far from it. Middle-aged in 1386, Chaucer was living in London, working as a midlevel bureaucrat and sometime poet, until a personal and professional
crisis set him down the road leading to The Canterbury Tales.

In the politically and economically fraught London of the late 14th century, Chaucer was swept up against his will in a series of disastrous events that would ultimately
leave him jobless, homeless, separated from his wife, exiled from his city, and isolated in the countryside of Kent-with no more audience to hear the poetry
he labored over.

At the loneliest time of his life, Chaucer made the...