Editing Geoffrey Chaucer (section)

===Literary===
[[File:William Blake - Geoffrey Chaucer - Manchester City Gallery - Tempera on canvas c 1800.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Chaucer by Romantic era poet and painter [[William Blake]], c. 1800]]
Widespread knowledge of Chaucer's works is attested by the many poets who imitated or responded to his writing. [[John Lydgate]] was one of the earliest poets to write continuations of Chaucer's unfinished ''Tales''. At the same time [[Robert Henryson]]'s ''[[The Testament of Cresseid]]'' completes the story of [[Cressida]] left unfinished in his ''Troilus and Criseyde''.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Testament of Cresseid |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/aug/30/testament-of-cresseid-edinburgh-review |access-date=15 February 2025 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> Many of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works contain material from these poets, and later appreciations by the [[Romantic era]] poets were shaped by their failure to distinguish the later "additions" from the original Chaucer.

Writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as [[John Dryden]], admired Chaucer for his stories but not for his rhythm and rhyme, as few critics could then read Middle English and the text had been butchered by printers, leaving a somewhat unadmirable mess.<ref>"From The Preface to ''Fables Ancient and Modern''". ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature''. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York, London: Norton, 2006. 2132–33. p. 2132.</ref> It was not until the late 19th century that the official Chaucerian canon, accepted today, was decided upon, largely as a result of [[Walter William Skeat]]'s work. Roughly seventy-five years after Chaucer's death, ''The Canterbury Tales'' was selected by [[William Caxton]] as one of the first books to be printed in England.<ref>{{cite news |title=William Caxton's illustrated second edition of The Canterbury Tales |url=https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/william-caxton-and-canterbury-tales |access-date=22 July 2021 |agency=British Library |archive-date=23 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723003304/https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/william-caxton-and-canterbury-tales |url-status=dead }}</ref>