This critical biography traces in detail what is known of Geoffrey Chaucer's personal life, while exploring the relationship between the poet and the man of affairs, who made so many "improvisations and accommodations" to ensure his own survival.

This important new critical biography traces what is know of Geoffrey Chaucer's personal life while exploring the fascinating relationship between the man of affairs and the poet. He lived during a period which saw not only the deposition of Richard II in 1399 but also the emergence of a new English poetry and a brilliant, if short-lived, English cultural renaissance. Derek Pearsall shows that Chaucer's immersion in his troubled times was more intimately expressed in his work than is admitted by traditional accounts. The 'accommodations' of his public life are seen as being of a piece with the habitual irony, the studied elusiveness of a poetry, in which almost everything that could be construed as comment on contemporary events is avoided.

List of figures and illustrations.
List of Abbreviations.
Introduction: Writing a life of Chaucer.
1. Beginnings (c.1340-1360).
2. Early Career (The 1360s).
3. Advances (The 1370s).
4. Fame (1380-1386).
5. Reversals, New Beginnings (1386-1391).
6. Renewal (The 1390s).
Epilogue.
Appendix I The Chaucer Portraits.
Notes.
List of Short Titles and Bibliography.
Index.