In The Canterbury Tales , Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce. This version of the text has been translated into modern English by Nevill Coghill.

Describing Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil as a guide, this work depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. Led by leering demons, the poet must ultimately journey with Virgil to the deepest level of all.

Recasts the storytelling heritage of the ancient and medieval worlds into perennial forms that inspired writers including Chaucer and Shakespeare. This book hovers between the fading glories of an aristocratic past - the Crusades, the Angevins, the courts of France, the legendary East - and the squalor of contemporary life.

Described variously as the greatest poem of the European Middle Ages and, because of the author's evangelical purpose, the 'fifth Gospel', the Divine Comedy is central to the culture of the west. The poem is a spiritual autobiography in the form of a journey - the poet travels from the dark circles of the Inferno, up the mountain of Purgatory, where Virgil, his guide leaves him to encounter ...

A green knight on a green horse rudely interrupts the Round Table festivities one Yuletide, casting a pall of unease over the company and challenging one of their number to a wager. The virtuous Gawain accepts, and decapitates the intruder with his own axe.

Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. But his delicate mission is overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night.

Depicting a realm of intense sensation and physical experience, this poem transforms the traditional Christian idea of Purgatory by showing how the free will of the aspiring soul could change wordly perversions into perfection.

Originally released on 3 CDs in abridged form. Now available on 4 CDs unabridged. I have been in the Heaven that takes up most of his light, and saw things there that those who descend from that height cannot speak of or forget... Led by his guide Beatrice, Dante leaves the Earth behind and soars through the heavenly spheres of Paradise. In this third and final part of The Divine Comedy, he ...

In the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. In the forest they see two men killed. As adults, their lives will be braided together by love, greed and revenge. They will see prosperity and famine, plague and war. And they will live under the shadow of the unexplained killing they had witnessed.

A spiritual allegory that explores man in relation to his ultimate destiny against the background of teeming, colorful medieval life.

Katherine comes to the court of Edward III at the age of fifteen, and she turns the head of the King's favourite son John of Gaunt. But he is married, and she is soon to be betrothed. A few years later their paths cross again and this time their passion for each other cannot be denied or suppressed.

Describe a series of revelations which the author received from God in the year 1373. This title identifies the female nature of Christ's suffering and the motherhood of God, using images from domestic daily life, emphasizing the homeliness of God's love.

Arguably the greatest biomedical disaster in history, the Black Death of the 14th century wiped out 40 per cent of Europe's population, rocking the foundations of medieval civilisation. The author penetrates a haze of myths to offer the reader a social history, not just of collapse but of rebirth.

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT is one of the most important alliterative poems of Medieval literature

The chronicles of Froissart are one of the greatest contemporary records of 14th-century England and France. Depicting the great age of Anglo-French rivalry from the deposition of Edwards II to the downfall of Richard II, Froissart portrays the deeds of knights in battle at Sluys, Crecy, Calais and Poitiers during the Hundred Years War.

Selected titles, third edition.

The year is 1348 and the first plague victim has reached English shores. Panic erupts around the country and a small band of travellers comes together to outrun the deadly disease, unaware that something far more deadly is - in fact - travelling with them.