One of Chaucer's most popular and complex characters, the Wife of Bath has inspired a rich and diverse range of published scholarship. This work is the latest in the University of Toronto Press's Chaucer Bibliographies series, a series which aims to provide annotated bibliographies for all of Chaucer's works, and summarizes twentieth-century commentary on the Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. There are six sections to the bibliography, with items arranged chronologically in each section: editions and translations, sources and analogues, the marriage group, gentillesse or nobility, the General Prologue, the Wife of Bath's Prologue and the actual Tale.

The editors have assembled a comprehensive bibliography covering not only standard English literature, medieval studies, and Chaucerian studies sources, but also less well-known references and items published in languages other than English. Developments in Chaucer criticism are traced and grouped thematically, a particular benefit for those approaching Chaucerian studies for the first time.

Peter G. Biedler is a Professor of English at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 1968. He is also the author of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife of Bath: Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism (Bedford Books, 1996).

Elizabeth M. Biebel is Adjunct Professor at Lehigh University.