This book has roots in the first Chaucer course I took, in 1969 with Mary Carruthers at Smith College, and in my dissertation, directed by Elizabeth Kirk at Brown University. Since it has been “in the works” for such a long time, the list of those who have influenced it along the way is also long. It includes academics and nonacademics, Chaucerians and non-Chaucerians, and some institutions. The National Endowment for the Humanities supported me three times while I was working on this project: in 1975–6 for a wonderful postdoctoral year at the University of Chicago, in the summer of 1978 at the School for Criticism and Theory at the University of California at Irvine, and in 1980–1 at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina, where the community of fellows and the congenial and helpful staff provided an ideal context for writing. Brandeis University provided money for some of the typing and copying and access to a computer for word processing.

Of the individuals who have given help of many kinds, even the list of those who have read the entire manuscript is substantial: David Aers, Mary Carruthers, Robert Hanning, Richard Lanham, H. Marshall Leicester, Jr., Ira Levine, Jonathan Loesberg, Charles Owen, Richard Allen Shoaf, Jay Schleusener, John Smith, and Winthrop Wetherbee saved me from error, pushed me toward clarity, made me account for more of the evidence, and encouraged me to keep going.