This edition of the collected works of Chaucer was issued in two formats, one containing woodcut illustrations for each tale in The Canterbury Tales and the other containing only one woodcut (shown) for the Knight's Tale. This copy is of the second variety.

The work was edited by John Stow, a tailor by trade and connoisseur of English poetry. Much of the work in this edition, however, is ascribed to previous Chaucer editor, William Thynne, except for the addition of several new poems that Stow attributed to Chaucer, and one poem by John Lydgate. The true origin of many of these poems is unknown, and scholars cannot say with certainty whether they were written by Chaucer.

While the text of this edition offers little that is new to the transmission or interpretation of Chaucer, it is most likely the edition by which William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser and other Elizabethan authors knew Chaucer.