"[Turner has] read his work so intelligently, that even those who thought they knew it all already will find themselves looking at Chaucer with completely fresh eyes. She evokes the times, the politics, the personalities of his contemporaries and, above all, she gets inside this most ironical and brilliant of poets. . . . The book was so richly enjoyable that, once I had finished, I started to read all over again. It is an absolute triumph."鈥擜. N. Wilson, Times Literary Supplement
"A quite exceptional biography that with imaginative insight and stylish wit, sets one of the most significant figures in English literary history firmly in a European context."鈥�Wolfson History Prize judges
""It鈥檚 very wide-ranging scholarship, but it鈥檚 written in a witty, engaging style and it鈥檚 very, very accessible. . . . [A] deeply researched and highly readable life.""鈥擱ichard J. Evans, Five Books
"[Chaucer鈥檚] life in its European context. Fresh glimpses of the great man are everywhere: perhaps most strikingly an account of the instagrammable teenaged Chaucer posing as aristocratic eye candy in a skimpy outfit called a 'paltok', which failed to cover his backside. Oddsbodkins!"鈥擩ames Marriott, The Times
"A European Life feels to me like a radical new take on a man we thought we knew, but whose sophisticated business, military and political career took him criss-crossing the continent."鈥擜ndrew Marr, Start the Week, BBC Radio 4
"A hugely illuminating book. This is one of those studies that academics like to call 'magisterial', but non-specialists will find much to enjoy here too. Turner's writing is never less than perspicacious, and often slyly humorous. . . . What A European Life does particularly well is to situate Chaucer in the largeness and complexity of his world."鈥擳im Smith-Laing, The Telegraph (five star review)
"Turner charts an uncannily tangible route through Chaucer鈥檚 life, binding his ideas and poems to precise locations, often enlivening it with consummate detail. . . . Chaucer: A European Life serves as a compass that allows readers to traverse Chaucer鈥檚 London and Europe. At the same time, reading Turner鈥檚 book makes us aware of how much our own lives are shaped by the rooms we inhabit and the places we visit. . . . Chaucer: A European Life introduces the 21st century to Chaucer and Chaucer to the 21st century"鈥擲ebastian Sobecki, Literary Review
"In this fine biography, Marion Turner gives us new images of the poet. Turner鈥檚 biography takes us from birth to death, but focuses on the spaces through which Chaucer moved, in reality and in poetic imagination. This is a clever move, and Turner鈥檚 technique means that the poet鈥檚 works can be woven organically into an account of his life. The book is elegantly written, accessible to the general reader as well as the scholarly specialist. In suggesting further questions and presenting an array of new images, Turner鈥檚 book gives us back an image of Chaucer more melancholy and mercurial than the cosy figure we thought we knew."鈥擬ark Williams, The Times
"[A] wholly beguiling, original, vividly written appreciation of the hugely innovative author and his rich cultural and political European background. A parable for our time?"鈥擱obert Fox, Evening Standard
"Magnificently scholarly."鈥擲am Leith, The Spectator
"Marion Turner鈥檚 exciting new biography explores in breathtaking detail the spaces and places that shaped the imaginative world of this great Anglo-European poet . . . . this momentous biography gives readers a new perspective on the personal authorial journey that culminated in The Canterbury Tales. Turner has produced a stylishly written and carefully crafted book, at times humorous and always lucid, lively, and engaging."鈥擟lare Egan, BBC History Magazine
"[Turner pays] carefully nuanced attention to the significance of the places visited, to the mixture of cultures they accommodated, and to the range of experiences they offered to a traveller from London. . . . [Turner鈥檚] processes of expansion, and of interweaving the life with the works, make for enjoyable and consistently informative reading. . . . Although the book鈥檚 European emphasis and concluding gestures to the here and now insist on its timeliness, its real focus is on understanding Chaucer鈥檚 world through the variety of that world鈥檚 records and its remains, and through the imaginative reflection of it in Chaucer鈥檚 works."鈥擩ulia Boffey, Times Literary Supplement
"Marion Turner has had the inspired idea of organising her biography by the places [Chaucer] occupied . . . . So many places, so many points of view. Chaucer's modernity consists in his adoption of many perspectives. This biography provides a wonderful illumination of his art."鈥�Country Life Magazine
"It feels as though new light is genuinely being shed on Chaucer鈥檚 life, combining documentary material with sure-footed interpretations of his works, what we know of the people and places he encountered, and social and economic history . . . . The result is a three-dimensional picture of Chaucer from the outside in."鈥擫aura Ashe, History Today
"Marion Turner has done a magnificent job. . . . I do not expect to see this biography superseded."鈥擯aul Dean, New Criterion
"A meticulously researched, well-styled academic study showing Chaucer as the 鈥榗onsummate networker.鈥�"鈥�Kirkus
"This meaty new biography is likely to be the best book on the subject for decades to come."鈥擲teve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
"In Marion Turner鈥檚 capacious biography 鈥� the first since Derek Pearsall鈥檚 in 1992 and the first ever by a woman 鈥� Chaucer is Bakhtinian and plural, a man of many voices. Much like his Canterbury pilgrims, he is always en route but never arriving. . . . Fittingly, she ends by rejecting the image of Chaucer as the 鈥榝ather of English poetry鈥� and finds his legacy instead in the suppressed and marginalised voices that he licensed to speak."鈥擝arbara Newman, London Review of Books
"A rich, thought-provoking and readable work of scholarship. . . . [Turner] has forged a new kind of biography. . . . Her work promises to be definitive for some time to come."鈥擬ary Wellesley, Times Higher Education
"[A] great swirl of a biography, one more capacious and more ranging than any of its predecessors. . . . [Chaucer: A European Life] proclaims a hope to bring this canonical medieval poet to life before a broad, modern audience."鈥擩oe Stadolnik, Los Angeles Review of Books
"What wonders Turner can work with a word! . . . . I find it difficult to stop quoting Turner, since she puts the life she is following into such intricate yet accessible prose. You need to stick with this long biography to fully absorb the point toward which she is headed. In other words, it becomes a journey just like the many trips Chaucer took for himself and others."鈥擟arl Rollyson, University Bookman
"Chaucer has not lacked for biographies, but Marion Turner鈥檚 is of a rare ambition and competence . . . [A] very substantial book . . . sustained by a confident erudition and a powerful and controlled narrative flow."鈥擩ohn V. Fleming, First Things
"[I]n Marion Turner's brilliant 'Chaucer: A European Life,' you will learn not only about the life of the man behind 'The Canterbury Tales,' you will learn about the bustling, fast-changing world in which he lived and traveled . . . if you are interested in history, poetry or the man who invented iambic pentameter, it's fascinating."鈥擫aurie Hertzel, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Turner's study is itself like a medieval book. It loves exhaustive detail; it loves a careful architectural design; and it is not afraid of exhausting its readers. It's a biography full of rich detail . . . securely grounded in the material and cultural world, instead of the conventional focus on the singular voice of a solitary poetic genius."鈥擲tephanie Trigg, Sydney Morning Herald
"Marion Turner's splendid new biography of the poet . . . is wonderfully evocative. [A] magisterial intellectual biography."鈥擝ruce Whiteman, Hudson Review
"[Turner's] expansive book is written with an unusual mix of erudition, clarity, and wit: it will be required reading for specialists, an invaluable resource for students, and a rich introduction to Chaucer鈥檚 world for the general reader. . . .[Turner's] generous and humane vision is deeply appealing, and offered with a warmth that is hard to resist鈥攁 welcome invitation to all of us to broaden our horizons."鈥擯hilip Knox, Review of English Studies
"Chaucer鈥檚 first female biographer provides a fresh, modern perspective, memorably showing us the great poet as a young man dressed by his employer in a skimpy garment designed to emphasise the genitals and buttocks. A richly textured account and an essential addition to Chaucerian scholarship."鈥擟laire Lowdon, Sunday Times
"Marion Turner carves out a space for another biography by locating the facts of Chaucer鈥檚 professional and writing life within the context of English and European history and material culture鈥his is a strong biography, well suited to the needs and interests of our own Chaucerian moment."鈥擫ynn Staley, Studies in the Age of Chaucer
"[Turner] enchantingly weaves Chaucer鈥檚 life and poetry between the local spaces of households, gardens, and inns, as well as the international spaces of French castles under siege, Italian libraries, and Mediterranean marketplaces. . . .[this book] is crucial and rewarding for any current or future student of medieval literature鈥攁nd luckily for us, Turner鈥檚 style both educates and delights."鈥擫eah Pope Parker, Journal of British Studies
"[Turner鈥檚] enormous contribution to our comprehension of Chaucer's moves and maneuvers within his culture will alter scholarly contexts."鈥擩ohn L. Murphy, PopMatters
"[A] new and brilliant biography. . . . This is a book of the first importance not only for students of Chaucer but for anyone seriously interested in the ways in which history, poetry, life and art generally came about and developed in late medieval Europe."鈥�Heythrop Journal
"Chaucer scholarship has always been awaiting a biography this rich鈥mong the very many contributions Turner鈥檚 biography makes to Chaucer scholarship is to reverse the general presumption that has always animated studies of this kind; rather than write about Chaucer because he was a historically significant poet, Turner shows us what, in history, made this poet matter."鈥擟hristopher Canno, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies
"A vivid reconstruction of Chaucer鈥檚 14th-century world and a revelatory exploration of his poems."鈥擳homas Penn, History Today
"Chaucer: A European Life is a masterful appreciation of the first great poet of the living English language鈥攁 biography of Geoffrey Chaucer wrapped around a thoughtful study of what Chaucer wrote and what he read . . . A strength of this book is that Turner looks beyond the portraits that Chaucer so emphatically sketched to emphasize the vitality with which he imbued his characters. . . . The genius of the book lies in its valuing of difference qua difference, and its refusal either to collapse those differences or to prioritize saint鈥檚 life over folktale, man over woman, knight over miller, marquis over peasant girl, moral truth over poetic line, idea over rhetoric."鈥擳he Key Reporter, Allen D. Boyer
"A masterpiece."鈥擲imon Winder, New Statesman
"This is an invigorating and refreshing book that is by no means a standard biography. . . . this book is an extraordinary achievement. Its erudition and enthusiasm are matched by an enviable eloquence, and it will remain a focus of admiration, reference and discussion for many years to come."鈥擯eter Brown, Archiv f眉r das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen
"Marion Turner does a spectacular job."鈥擝aroness Bennet, The House Magazine
鈥淢arion Turner鈥檚 ambitious biography is significantly different from others of Chaucer. Its focus on place enables Turner to explore Chaucer鈥檚 national and international political and cultural background in more detail than ever before.鈥濃�擧elen Cooper, University of Cambridge
"Marion Turner, in this splendid biography, shows us that Chaucer was, to be sure, powerfully inflected by the extraordinary range of places, both English and continental, through which he travelled and in which he lived. She also demonstrates, in lucid and lively prose, that Chaucer was what he read and imagined. Turner enlarges the genre, without for a moment losing her eagle-eyed command of the fascinating empirical detail."鈥擩ames Simpson, Harvard University
"A hugely enjoyable, accessible, cradle-to-grave biography, bringing us from the baby Chaucer among merchants in Thames Street to the civil servant dying among monks at Westminster. In between we encounter the life, vividly detailed, not just of a brilliant artist, but of the streets and sea-lanes that shaped him. An admirably full life of England's first great Anglo-European poet."鈥擠avid Wallace, University of Pennsylvania
