Author: ed. William Finley & Joseph Rosenblum

Publisher/Date: Oak Knoll/British Library 2003 First Edition

Format/Condition: NEW hardcover book with dust jacket, 445 pages, illustrated throughout in b/w with 12 pages of color plates

Description: This work presents ten scholarly essays, specifically commissioned for this volume, that collectively trace pictorial renditions of the Canterbury Tales from the Ellesmere Manuscript (c.1410) to the 20th-century illustrations of Rockwell Kent and Eric Gill. The contributors address the way the illustrations illuminate the history of book production, marketing, and readership; and the writers also consider how artists have interpreted Chaucer’s text. This volume has over 140 illustrations (40 in color) with some that have never been reproduced before. Notably, nine pictures by James Jefferys that accompany the essay by Betsy Bowden. Also appearing for the first time since 1818 is William Paulet Carey’s Critical Description of Thomas Stothard’s Procession of Chaucer’s Pilgrims to Canterbury, edited with an introduction by Maria McGarrity. Co-published with The British Library.