Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, The Early English Poet: Including Memoirs of His Near Friend and Kinsman, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster: With Sketches of the Manners, Opinions, Arts and Literature of England in the Fourteenth Century.

GODWIN, William. [Geoffrey Chaucer].

Item Number: 119008

London: Printed by T. Davison, White-Friars; For Richard Phillips, 1803.

First edition of Godwin’s history of Chaucer’s England. Quarto, two volumes bound in three quarter morocco over marbled boards with burgundy morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, engraved frontispiece portrait of Chaucer from an original painting in the Picture Gallery at Oxford to Vol. I and that of John Gaunt from a window in the library of All Souls College at Oxford to volume II. From the library of Harold Greenhill with his bookplates to the pastedowns and a presentation leaf signed by 32 members of The Caxton Club presented to Greenhill on the occasion of his talk before the Caxon Club on March 1, 1956. In near fine condition.

Godwin spent three years compiling his history of Chaucer's England. "He read extensively at the British Museum going there nearly every day. He delved into public records then preserved at the Tower of London and uncovered references to Chaucer that had not previously been known. He tried to give a sense of how the world might have appeared in Chaucer's day. He explained the workings of the law, the role of the church, the distribution of political power, the position of women, and how changes in the economic background affected his subject's finances and behavior. The Life of Chaucer was not only a biography but a history of the cultural, social, and political background of Chaucer's England" (St Clair, The Godwin's and the Shelley's, 266).