The Knight’s Tale of medieval wars and chivalry is the first tale told to the pilgrims as they set out to Canterbury. It concerns Theseus, returning from fighting at Thebes, two brother knights Palamon and Arcite, imprisoned but yearning for their loves. But the real hero of this recording is Richard Bebb who, with the help of Professor Derek Brewer, the leading expert on Chaucerian pronunciation, makes the original Middle English not only comprehensible to the modern ear, but exciting.
Author Peter Ackroyd has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, and the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s immortal work, this retelling of The Canterbury Tal...
Narrator: Toby Leonard Moore Published: 08/16/2011
'The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a Modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!) and well worth the wait. These amazing texts from a thirteenth-century Icelandic manuscript are ...
Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, a collection of narratives written between 1387 and 1400, tells of a group of thirty people from all layers of society who pass the time along their pilgrimage to Canterbury by telling stories to one another, th...
Narrator: Timothy West, Charles Kay, Stephen Tompkinson, Tim Pigott-Smith, Published: 02/01/2004
These three tales from The Canterbury Tales are read in the original Middle English by Richard Bebb under the direction of Britain’s foremost Chaucer scholar, Derek Brewer. This was Bebb’s last recording – he died shortly afte...
The Canterbury Tales are widely read and studied. The Middle English in which they were first written differs sufficiently from modern English, in vocabulary and usage, that most of us require a contemporary translation. On this recording the &lsquo...
Narrator: Richard Bebb, Philip Madoc, and Stephen Tompkinson Published: 01/01/2006
A mysterious knight all in green arrives at King Arthur’s court and issues a bizarre challenge. Gawain answers the knight – but at what cost? This new translation keeps all the poetic power of the original’s extraordinary alli...
Four more delightful tales from one of the most entertaining storytellers of all time. Though writing in the thirteenth century, Chaucer’s wit and observation comes down undiminished through the ages, especially in this accessible modern verse...
Narrator: Philip Madoc, Frances Jeater, John Rowe, Charlie Simpson, and Jo Published: 03/01/2002
Chaucer’s greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society, and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of The Knight’s Tale to the joyous bawdy ...
Narrator: Philip Madoc, Edward de Souza, Anthony Donovan, Clive Merrison, Published: 11/01/2004
Dramatic, intense, and gripping, The Inferno of Dante is an astonishing masterpiece that no listener can afford to miss. Robert Pinsky, the distinguished American poet, preserves the burning clarity and universal relevance of this 13th century liter...
