The first edition, Number 47 in the Viking Portable Library, persisted from 1949 to 1974. In 1975, the revised edition was published by Viking and Penguin as Number 81 (although the numbering was only preserved in the paperback ISBN from 1975 until about 1993, at which point it was abandoned entirely for new volumes in the VPL). As of mid-2017, there has been no new revised edition of the Portable Chaucer since the 1975 edition, and as Penguin has abandoned the old ISBN scheme with the current black-spined editions, any new version would fall later still in the numbering sequence. Therefore, all editions published prior to 1975 should be assigned No. 47, and all those after No. 81, including the 1975 hardcover, the wrap-around photo cover edition, and the white-spined 1990s edition.

The primary difference between editions is that the 1975 edition contains three selections/short poems (selections from "The Book of the Duchess" and "The Birds' Parliament" and poem "Nobility"), not included in the 1949 edition.