“If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books.” – Roald Dahl
For this 17th weekly edition of the Lit With Charles newsletter, I’ve cooked up a few fascinating tidbits and factoids that will hopefully get your literary juices flowing.
Chaucer tells The Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II
April 17th is a pretty foundational day in the literary calendar, and sadly under-rated. It’s on that day that Geoffrey Chaucer first recited his magnum opus, The Canterbury Tales, in the court of the English King Richard II (‘Richard of Bordeaux’) back in 1397.
Geoffrey Chaucer, sometimes called the "Father of English Literature," was born around 1343. His father was a wine merchant, with quite a successful shop on Thames Street. Little is known about his early life, but we do know he received a quality education and served in various official capacities throughout his career, spending most of his life as a government official in the midst of the Hundred Years’ War (which actually lasted 116 but after a century of war, who’s counting?)
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