The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 10 plus 5 letter word CANTERBURY TALES
I've seen this crossword clue in The Times
C
A
N
T
E
R
B
U
R
Y
T
A
L
E
S
More clues leading to the result CANTERBURY TALES
- Edit extremely early Burt Lancaster work
- Hypocritical speaker to cover least bad book
- Stories are racy, but lent out by school head
- Can’t betray rules set out for pilgrims’ stories
- Carey burnt inaccurate stories about a pilgrimage
- Stories told from from Pilgrims’ Progress to a place in Kent
- A recreant subtly falsified stories of old
- Betrayals etc run wildly through 10’s work
- Classic run and hide — makes least difference
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "work" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case work = canterbury tales.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.