This volume, the work of a group of Chaucerians from the University of Adelaide, is the latest in the University of Toronto Press's Chaucer Bibliography series, a series which aims to provide annotated bibliographies for all of Chaucer's works. It summarizes twentieth-century commentary on the three fabliaux of Fragment 1 of The Canterbury Tales: the Miller's, the Reeve's, and the Cook's tales. There are separate sections for editions, translations and modernizations, sources and analogues, lexicographical and linguistic studies, for the tales considered as a group and for each tale considered separately. Annotations are arranged chronologically within each section, facilitating a quick grasp of the changing critical attitudes towards these tales, and showing how earlier neglect (resulting from embarrassment at the naughtiness of their subject matter) has given way, in the second half of the twentieth century, to universal admiration for their astonishing artistry.
The general introduction and the separate section introductions comment on and evaluate the varying critical approaches. The detailed index facilitates research on particular characters, themes, or approaches, as well as on the work of individual commentators.
