The Canterbury Tales ("The Ellesmere Chaucer")

London, soon after 1400
Gothica bastarda

The Huntington Library, San Marino, California (US)
Ms. EL 26 C 9

Date of Publication of the Facsimile: 1995
Publisher: Huntington Library, San Marino, California (US) and Yushodo Co, Ltd, Tokyo (Japan)
Photography and Computer Imaging: Yushodo Co, Ltd, Tokyo (Japan)

Written for an affluent patron within a few years of Chaucer's death, the Ellesmere manuscript is the most complete version of the Canterbury Tales -- the recounting of the various stories which a groups of pilgrims told one another on the way to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury.

Early facsimiles of medieval manuscripts might be distributed in installments to the subscribers, who could then bind them as they wished -- as would have been the practice in late-medieval printing shops. Apart from reduced cost, a facsimile in loose, unbound, gatherings has certain advantages for scholars, who can better study the structure of the book itself, and also compare pages side-by-side. On the other hand, one does not get a sense of what the original codex was really like to better evaluate how it was actually used.






(Permission to reproduce images from this facsimile was not granted.)

Romance of Alexander

Divina Commedia