John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright. He had a successful career writing plays and translations in the late 1600s. In his Preface to Fables, Dryden explains how the project began modestly but expanded significantly. He first translated books from Homer and Ovid, which were very popular successes. Encouraged, Dryden then chose several tales from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and some from Boccaccio to translate into simple English verse narratives. He leaves it to readers to judge the merits of his translations.