About the Author

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343–1400) was a London-born poet, courtier, diplomat, and civil servant whose travels through Europe exposed him to a wide range of stories, languages, and social worlds. He is best known for The Canterbury Tales, a vivid, often witty portrait of medieval English life told through pilgrims from every walk of society. Often called the “Father of English literature,” Chaucer helped establish English, not just Latin or French, as a language worthy of great poetry. Living in an age marked by plague, war, religious tension, and social change, he had good reason to understand that life moves quickly and opportunities do not wait, an idea captured in the timeless warning, “Time and tide wait for no man.”