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Historical person

Geoffrey Chaucer

1343–1400

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English courtier, diplomat, administrator and poet whose career connected him to the households of Edward III, Richard II and John of Gaunt. He travelled in France and Italy, held customs and royal offices and wrote works including Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales. His use of Middle English helped establish a major literary tradition, although many of his works remained unfinished at his death around 1400.

Chaucer's public career included diplomatic missions to France and Italy, work in the customs service and appointments connected with royal building works and administration. His contacts with Italian literature helped shape works such as Troilus and Criseyde, while The Canterbury Tales used a pilgrimage framework to bring together voices from different ranks of late-medieval society. He died around 1400 and was later buried in the area of Westminster Abbey that became known as Poets' Corner.

Candace Robb uses Chaucer as an active royal agent rather than merely the future author of The Canterbury Tales. In A Conspiracy of Wolves he comes to York on confidential business for Prince Edward and joins Owen Archer’s investigation, while A Gift of Sanctuary sends Chaucer and Owen to Wales on a secret commission for John of Gaunt. Paul Doherty’s A Haunt of Murder, A Tapestry of Murders and A Tournament of Murders take a more playful approach: Chaucer’s famous company of pilgrims becomes the framework for linked medieval mysteries, with the journey to Canterbury providing both the cast and the social setting. Together the novels draw on both halves of Chaucer’s historical identity—court servant and diplomat on one side, poet and creator of pilgrims on the other.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Geoffrey Chaucer (5 series)

An Owen Archer Mystery in Order

by Candace Robb 16 books 4.2(39,740)

The Owen Archer mysteries follow a Welsh soldier and former captain of archers who becomes an investigator, spy and officer in fourteenth-century York. Beginning in 1363, Owen serves Archbishop John Thoresby and later the city authorities, while his marriage to apothecary Lucie Wilton gives the investigations a close…

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Canterbury Tales Mysteries in Order

by Paul Doherty 7 books 4.4(8,100)

The Canterbury Tales Mysteries use the pilgrimage framework associated with Geoffrey Chaucer. Travellers setting out from the Tabard Inn agree to exchange darker evening tales alongside their ordinary stories, and each volume gives a different pilgrim a mystery of murder, haunting, revenge or concealed guilt. The stories range…

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Geoffrey Chaucer Mysteries in Order

3 books 4.1(255)

The Geoffrey Chaucer mysteries recast the fourteenth-century poet, courtier and royal administrator as an investigator during the troubled reign of Richard II. Trow draws on Chaucer’s documented work in royal service and his journeys through England while giving him fictional murder cases whose suspects range across aristocratic households,…

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Crispin Guest Medieval Noir in Order

by Jeri Westerson 15 books 4.2(13,395)

The Crispin Guest Medieval Noir mysteries follow a disgraced former knight who survives in late-fourteenth-century London as the Tracker, an investigator hired to recover lost objects, expose secrets and untangle crimes that official justice cannot or will not solve. Crispin’s fall for treason gives him unusual access to…

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Geoffrey Chaucer Mysteries in Order

by Philip Gooden 4 books 4.1(2,435)

The Geoffrey Chaucer Mysteries place the poet before the completion of The Canterbury Tales, when royal service carried him through London, Aquitaine, Florence and the ports of southern England. Chaucer acts as a household officer, diplomatic messenger and reluctant investigator while England’s war with France depends on uncertain…

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Standalone books

Standalone books featuring Geoffrey Chaucer (1 book)

Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Geoffrey Chaucer (1 book)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.