The Good Wife of Bath Karen by Brooks, HQ
It’s the language of this bawdy tale that tickles. Fleshing out the life of the Wife of Bath from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, her mother dies before feisty Eleanor is expelled. Married five times, she weaves her way to liberated woman, teaching girls how to handle men.
Her red hair signified whoredom and passion. When her “courses” start, this mouthy maid is in demand. She is wed at 12 to a grunting farmer – thinking she was to be his servant was bad enough. It’s her punishment for “ridiculously handsome” Father Layamon with the “soft pillow lips” finally “storming her heavenly gates”. Brooks describes her as “witty and irresistible”. She certainly is.