GEOFFREY CHAUCER, 1338-1400. Chaucer (the name is French and seems to have meant originally 'shoemaker') came into the world probably in 1338, the first important author who was born and lived in London, which with him becomes the center of English literature. About his life, as about those of many of our earlier writers, there remains only very fragmentary information, which in his case is largely pieced together from scattering entries of various kinds in such documents as court account books and public records of state matters and of lawsuits. His father, a wine merchant, may have helped supply the cellars of the king (Edward III) and so have been able to bring his son to royal notice; at any rate, while still in his teens Geoffrey became a page in the service of one of the king's daughters-in-law.
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Death of chaucer
Jones makes much of the fact that Chaucer wasn't expecting to die. In December 1599, he took out a 53-year lease on a property: why would he do that if his health were failing? On such slender threads of circumstance.
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