Copyright, 1879, BY HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. All rights reserved. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY ADVERTISEMENT. AT the time that the present collection of the works of the British Poets was issued in Boston, there was, in the opinion of the American Editor, no text of Chaucer's poems available for use that was worthy of the poet's name, or of the standard of excellence and purity established for the series. The deficiency has at last to a great extent been supplied through the labors of scholars connected with the Chaucer Society, of London, established by Mr. Frederick J. Furnivall, and directed by him for a series of years with a persistent and self-sacrificing generosity seldom equaled. This learned body has made available for the use of editors a large number of manuscripts of the different poems and prose works, and notably six entire texts of the Canterbury Tales. In the present edition advantage has been taken of these important labors, which include |