Three of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale, The Squire's Tale, and The Franklin's Tale.

This was a good edition, pitched at round about the right level for me, with helpful vocabulary glosses but not too many unnecessary ones. A few notes on cultural matters and some of the allusions might have been useful. Even without that, I felt I was getting the drift most of the time.

It was possible to see how the characters had a different story-telling voice in each tale. The Knight's tale was perhaps the most foreign to a modern reader: two cousins in love with the same woman fight a joust with her hand in marriage as the prize. She would really much rather stay single but doesn't get any say in the matter. The Squire's tale looked like it was going to be very long and worthy of Scheherezade so I wasn't sure whether I was glad or sorry when he was cut off. The Franklin's tale was a lovely little tale of married love with a happy ending after the wife gets herself into trouble by speaking without thinking. ( )