Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling
    The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling
    The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling
    Audiobook16 hours

    The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling

    Written by Peter Ackroyd and Geoffrey Chaucer

    Narrated by Ron Keith, Bianca Amato, Toby Leonard Moore and

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Author Peter Ackroyd has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, and the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer's immortal work, this retelling of The Canterbury Tales follows a party of travelers as they tell stories amongst themselves about love and chivalry, saints and legends, travel and adventure. Through allegory, satire, and humor, the tales help pass the time during their journey.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateSep 30, 2011
    ISBN9781449843618
    The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling
    Author

    Peter Ackroyd

    Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning novelist, as well as a broadcaster, biographer, poet and historian. He is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction bestsellers, Thames: Sacred River and London: The Biography, as well as the History of England series. He holds a CBE for services to literature and lives in London.

    More audiobooks from Peter Ackroyd

    Related to The Canterbury Tales

    Related audiobooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The best-ever ROMANCES

      Jan 7, 2021

      The best-ever ROMANCES
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Foul-mouthed Miller And The Prim Prioress

      Jan 3, 2024

      HAT Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘drasty rhyming is nat worth a toord’ (his ‘dirty rhyming isn’t worth a turd’), the Host’s pungent dismissal in Chaucer’s best-known, but incomplete poem The Canterbury Tales, is a verdict that, with good reason, posterity has

      4 min read

    • Article

      The medieval Mills & Boon

      May 13, 2021

      The medieval Mills & Boon
      7 min read

    • Article

      Post-colonial Bad Jokes

      Mar 25, 2021

      Post-colonial Bad Jokes
      5 min read

    • Article

      True Romantic

      Apr 2, 2020

      True Romantic
      3 min read

    • Article

      The King Of Westminster

      May 24, 2023

      The King Of Westminster
      5 min read

    • Article

      Becoming Anne Boleyn

      May 13, 2021

      Becoming Anne Boleyn
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Voice Of A Female Golden Age

      Jan 19, 2023

      The Voice Of A Female Golden Age
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Trauma Of War

      Jul 14, 2021

      The Trauma Of War
      8 min read

    • Article

      Gothic Fantasy

      Mar 6, 2020

      Gothic Fantasy
      5 min read

    • Article

      Crazy For Cider

      Aug 25, 2021

      JAMES CROWDEN is a poet, shepherd and total cider nut. In this, at least his third book on the subject, there is no other drink but that it suffers from his passion for cider, apple brandy and cider’s delicate, sweet sister, perry—and almost no momen

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Byzantine Emperor In Europe

      Nov 11, 2023

      Perhaps Manuel gazed upon the fading silhouette of Constantinople from the ship's deck, wondering when—if ever—he would return to his capital. Constantinople was besieged by the Ottomans and likely to fall without military assistance. Indeed, this wa

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Waste Land turns 100

      Oct 19, 2022

      The Waste Land turns 100
      5 min read

    • Article

      Going Dutch

      Dec 8, 2021

      THIS work covers a period neatly book-ended by two sea journeys: those of Matilda, William the Conqueror’s Flemish-speaking wife, and the Dutch William of Orange in 1688. Between the two dates, the fortunes of Anglo-Dutch literary relations, like tho

      5 min read

    • Article

      'Black Tudors' Reveals a Surprising and Overlooked Chapter of History

      Nov 16, 2017

      Hidden in British archives and parish records are the identities of dozens of black people who lived in England during Tudor times.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Landscape Was His Mistress

      Feb 9, 2022

      IN 1802, John Constable wrote seven observations and resolutions about art. In them, among other things, he pledged to follow Nature, to make ‘unaffected’ pictures, and to avoid ‘common place people’. He also declared that ‘there is no easy way of be

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Canterbury Tales

    3.5/5

    69 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      This wasn't quite what I was expecting. From the blurb I had in my head that this would be a modern take on the Canterbury Tales with modern stories. I suppose I was expecting the knight to me, for example, a major in the Army. Not sure that some of the characters of religious persuasion translate as easily, but you could probably inf a charlatan or two or faith healers and the like to fill some of the less savory roles. As it was, it was a loose translation (as opposed to a word for word translation). Once I'd got my head round that as an idea, then it was OK. I've read a translation previously which did retain the poetry structure, while this does not (except for effect). That made it easy to listen to. I'm not sure that it didn't detract form the experience though. It's been a while since I read this, so it was interesting to see what I remembered immediately and what I had no recollection of what so ever. As ever, you can only marvel at the breadth Chaucer's vision and wish that he had actually managed to complete the task.
    • 3/5
      I haven't read the original so this retelling was accessible. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales come from a motley group of pilgrims who meet in a London inn on their way to Canterbury. They agree to take part in a storytelling competition to keep them entertained on the way. The stories range from comedy to tragedy, pious sermon to ribald farce, heroic adventure to passionate romance. They also reflect the attitudes of the time, especially towards women. Not really my cup of tea, but I'm glad to have read this retelling.
    • 4/5
      Peter Ackroyd has undertaken a re-writing of The Canterbury Tales in modern English prose. He has made these stories accessible to the modern reader, thereby giving us a glimpse of life in medieval times -- morals, beliefs, customs and occupations. Some of the stories were great; others less engaging. But I'm glad to have been able to get a taste of the Canterbury Tales.
    • 5/5
      To rewrite Chaucer in today's idiom invites disdain from the purists, but for one such as me, whose education omitted both this vital classic, and the linguistic tools that would have given me access to the original, Ackroyd has here done much to fill the gap that I have always known. Of course I cannot more than guess at what might have been left out, but I found the version highly illuminating, and even rather curious concerning the ways in which the modern idiom might have refreshed the original. No doubt those who are better educated, and privileged with the ability to hear clearly the master's intentions might find faults, because Ackroyd's viewpoint must needs be idiosyncratic. But I learned much, and not just from Ackroyd's sweet and stimulating prose. I feel I now have an inkling of why Chaucer's work was so important.
    • 3/5
      Ackroyd has "translated" Canterbury Tales into modern English and made it readily accessible. I have tried to read CT in the past, the original text is beyond me, and even the examples of side-by-side text haven't really made it possible for me to read cover to cover.The text is good, lively without being too anachronistic. The story is relatively timeless - in spite of the setting of a pilgrimage - the characters come though as analogs of people we could meet any day. Read June 2012
    • 2/5
      Rather than "A Retelling," this should be called "A Retailing." Ackroyd is a man of letters. There's not a money in lettering these days. So what do you do to bring home the bacon in a tough economy without having to break a sweat? You take a perennial classic in a "foreign" language, trot out a quick trot, and slap it between two hard covers. Go ahead and drop the boring parts, like "The Parson's Tale;" they just slow you down. Be sure you write it in prose, because "the modern world does not love the long poem." Above all, never apologize. If you feel the need to provide a "note on the text," start with: "There are no laws of translation." If that means Mr. Ackroyd will probably not face jail time, his declaration is true, regrettably.
    • 4/5
      As the book jacket accurately states "love, sex, infidelity, villainy, drunkenness, murder..." This is an accessible prose version of Chaucer's verse. It gives a real flavour of medieval life and for medieval thought. Tales with religion throughout but not particularly venerated, mostly focusing on lives lustily lived! Vivid morality tales... Did I enjoy it? Not really, but I’m glad I read it.