Chaucer’s Tale: 1386 and the Road to Canterbury by Paul Strohm
Nonfiction

When Geoffrey Chaucer was a young man, he had the misfortune of coming to the attention of John of Gaunt. One of the most powerful men in England, the ruthless Gaunt decided Chaucer would make an excellent pawn. Repeatedly shoved into positions where he was required to ignore or participate in corruption, Chaucer had no one to appeal to—even the king was in on it. When the whole mess fell apart, Chaucer found himself, in late middle age, jobless, homeless, and isolated from his literary friends as he wandered through rural Kent. Making a virtue of necessity, he put the experience to use in his writing. Those travels became the seeds of The Canterbury Tales.