The University of Toronto is pleased to be welcoming the New Chaucer Society to the city for their biennial congress. In celebration of this event, the Fisher Library is pleased to display modern and early-modern editions of Geoffrey Chaucer’s works from our collections. Beginning with the stunning Kelmscott Chaucer, a jewel of the Arts and Crafts movement, and moving from the 16th century to the 20th, this exhibit shows the variety of ways that people have interacted with Chaucer in print.
Also on display include William Thynne’s second edition of The Canterbury Tales, including woodcuts originally found in Caxton; marginalia from a 1602 collection of Chaucer’s works connecting it with the London landscape; an illustrated Czech printing of The Canterbury Tales complete with modernist illustrations; a beautiful Victorian cloth binding based on illustrations from the famous Ellesmere manuscript; and Eric Gill’s remarkable illustrated wood cuts in the Golden Cockerel Press’s Canterbury Tales. Welcome to Toronto and the Fisher, and enjoy a pilgrimage through our collection!