The Wife of Bath: Marion Turner and Mary Wellesley in Conversation

Marion Turner, the award-winning biographer of Chaucer, discusses the scandalous story of the Wife of Bath, and the legacy of medieval women, with historian Mary Wellesley. 

Few literary characters have led such colourful lives or have remained as influential and fascinating across the centuries. A sexually active and funny working woman, the Wife of Bath, also known as Alison, talks explicitly about sexual pleasure; she is also a victim of domestic abuse who tells a story of rape and redemption. In The Wife of Bath, Marion Turner tells Alison's story from the Middle Ages to #MeToo and Black Lives Matter.

Entertaining and enlightening, The Wife of Bath is a landmark history of a literary and feminist icon.

Marion Turner is the J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford. Chaucer: A European Life won the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize and was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize.

Mary Wellesley is the author of Hidden Hands, a richly told story of manuscripts and their makers. Her work appears regularly in the LRB and the TLS, among many others.

Their conversation will be followed by audience Q&A and a book signing.