A stunningly beautiful illustration of The Wife of Bath and the Prioress at Canterbury. These images of Canterbury Tales Characters are from the book The Story of the Canterbury Pilgrims retold from Chaucer by F. J. Harvey Darton and illustrated by M. L. Kirk. The book was published in 1914. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales (mostly in verse, although some are in prose) are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.