The Canterbury Tales: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Canterbury Tales, credited to Geoffrey Chaucer, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century (two of them in prose, the rest in verse). The tales, some of which are originals and others not, are contained inside a frame tale and told by a group of pilgrims on their way from Southwark to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The themes of the tales vary, and include topics such as courtly love, treachery, and avarice. The genres also vary, and include romance, Breton lai, sermon, beast fable, and fabliau. The characters, introduced in the General Prologue of the book, tell tales of great cultural relevance. The version read here was edited by D. Laing Purves "for popular perusal" and the language is mostly updated. (Summary by Wikipedia/Gesine) For more free audiobooks, or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit librivox.org.

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Canterbury Tales
• Author credits: Geoffrey Chaucer
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 29
• Listed recording duration: 19:23:19

Opening tracks: first 24 of 29

1. 01 - Preface — 6:21
2. 02 - The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer — 58:19
3. 03 - The General Prologue — 39:01
4. 04a - The Knight's Tale — 1:06:21
5. 04b - The Knight's Tale — 1:19:52
6. 05 - The Miller's Tale — 54:42
7. 06 - The Reeve's Tale — 23:26
8. 07 - The Cook's Tale — 7:51
9. 08 - The Man Of Law's Tale — 1:19:51
10. 09 - The Wife of Bath's Tale — 1:03:23
11. 10 - The Friar's Tale — 22:53
12. 11 - The Sompnour's Tale — 43:03
13. 12 - The Clerk's Tale — 1:20:06
14. 13 - The Merchant's Tale — 1:21:26
15. 14 - The Squire's Tale — 31:35
16. 15 - The Franklin's Tale — 43:41
17. 16 - The Doctor's Tale — 17:02
18. 17 - The Pardoner's Tale — 40:03
19. 18 - The Shipman's Tale — 27:37
20. 19 - The Prioress's Tale — 15:07
21. 20 - The Tale of Sir Thopas — 10:12
22. 21 - Chaucer's Tale of Meliboeus — 36:01
23. 22 - The Monk's Tale — 47:30
24. 23 - The Nun's Priest's Tale — 47:07

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.