Chaucer is clever, human, and incredibly fun to read aloud. That said reading I don't think I would have enjoyed The Canterbury Tales (the only portion I've read) 1/100 as much had I been reading the text on my own—I owe much of my enjoyment to a fantastic professor/class.

Beautiful, rich, timeless, important. I loved the better known tales but found myself enthralled by the less popular tales. Chaucer's tale of Melibius may be the best Self Help book in print. His coda, an explanation of the 7 deadly sins, in the Parson's Tale, is a magnificent summary of some seriously scary shit.
And nothing has changed in 600 years. The scariest thing of all.
Worth trying the Riverside edition with the Penguin modern translation or online resources in tandem.

English literature is downhill from Chaucer. Even as a Shakespeare scholar, I would argue this, since there are several characters in Chaucer who are as if live: The Wif of Bath, the Pardoner, the Host, the Canon's Yeoman,
and a half dozen others, at least. Shakespeare's characters, on the other hand, are all stagey, bigger than
life, infused with the stage. Or so it seems to me. Chaucer's Wif even makes colloquial grammar mistakes when she self-consciously describes what men like about women's bodies, such as "hire armes smalle."
Chaucer is outright, laugh-aloud funny, even in describing himself. The Host remarks how Chaucer as a pilgrim is staring at the ground while riding (shy?) and that he has a pot-belly like the Host himself. Chaucer gives himself the worst of the CT; he tells a memorized tale, which the Host interrupts as he would now interrupt rap, "This may we be rym doggerel"--this is doggerel!
As for Chaucer's superiority to all of English lit that follows, I would argue the same for Erasmus and H.S. education: Erasmus's Colloquiae, especially his Adulescens et Scortum, puts modern education books to shame. He wrote it for adolescent males, to teach them Latin, and it does this with a discussion between a prostitute and and a (High School-age) boy who's just been to Rome and reformed.
Admonition: Both Chaucer and Erasmus write essentially in a foreign language, the Middle English of
1390 being much closer to French--which in fact was used in Courts of Law in England for yet another century.

This is the bible of Chaucer, a beautifully bound book with EVEYRTHING the man wrote. The cons: its HUGE (think one-volume OED big), and the onion-skin paper makes for annoying reading. And my darkest secret as a medievalist is that I hate Chaucer - don't like his potty humour, his language, or his flouncy romance. I like my old english OLD, not middle.

read- Book of the Duchess
House of Fame
Parliament of Fouls
The Miller's Tale
The Shipman's Tale
The Second Nun's Tale
The Reeve's Tale
An ABC
Man of Law's Tale
Clerks Tale
Squire's Tale
Nun's Priest's Tale
Manciple's Tale
The Retraction

If you don't like The Canterbury Tales, we might not be friends - probably because you aren't literate. I can understand not liking/understanding the Middle English, but it is definetely worth trying. The translations are good too, but simply put, you need to read these stories.

Chaucer is brilliant. I think he's better than Shakespeare at concealing his own opinions and manipulations. It's hard to know where Chaucer stands on any of his stories and characters or when to take him seriously and when he's just having fun. That's part of what makes his work so complex and interesting. Must reads: "The Canterbury Tales," "Troilus and Cressida," and "Parliament of Fowls." Enjoy.

Okay, I'm a geek. I read Middle English for fun, but The Canterbury Tales are outstandingly entertaining if you're willing to work through the language. I also have to give major credit to Chaucer, who wrote this book each night by candlelight after a full day's work managing the London docks for the King of England. This story is my reminder that there is always time for art, no matter how busy you are.

As a collection of Chaucer's writings, the Riverside Chaucer is second to none. Presented in Middle English, complete with necessary glosses and helpful notes, the book encourages deeper analysis of Chaucer's poetry than any other available collections.

Okay, so this is THE book for Chaucer studies. However...and this is a big however...it is NOT a reader-friendly edition. The way the footnotes are set up is completely asinine, in my opinion. This is a great edition for Chaucer scholars who have been reading Chaucer for decades and know the stories well and read Middle English just as easily as they read the newspaper. For people not in those categories, this is not the ideal edition. Look for an edition that gives definitional glosses out to the side of each line rather than at the bottom of the page. It will make a huge difference.

An initial caveat: I did not read the entire Riverside Chaucer, merely the entire Canterbury Tales. I had not read the tales in any appreciable way since undergrad and felt it was high time I did. Somehow, the experience was richer and more meaningful to me as a middle aged man than it was to a young know-it-all. For me, Chaucer has every bit of the breadth of Shakespeare, the depth of Milton, and the reach of Dante. The descriptions of Alisoun in The Knight's Tale and the absolute ribaldry of The Miller's Tale are unparalleled in English literature.

Full disclosure: I skipped the longer translations from other writers.