Final answer:
Geoffrey Chaucer intended to write 120 tales for The Canterbury Tales, but only 24 completed tales exist, with some incomplete and others mentioned but not told.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer were supposed to include a total of 120 tales, but Chaucer died before he could finish the work. The existing manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales contain only 24 completed tales, with two tales left partly finished and several others mentioned in the prologue but never actually told. Chaucer's ambitious plan was for each character to tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the return journey, but this goal was never realized in the text we have today.