American Toby Jug Museum 

Geoffrey Chaucer two-handled character jug modeled by Robert I. Tabbenor and produced by Royal Doulton of Burslem, England, in a 1996 limited edition of 1,500. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for "The Canterbury Tales". He has been called the "father of English literature". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific "A Treatise on the Astrolabe" for his 10-year-old son. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament. He is seen as crucial in legitimizing the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin. Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian manuscripts. Each of the two handles features three pilgrims engaged in a story-telling contest as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.