The first book begins when, on the night of the tenth of December, Chaucer has a dream in which he is inside a temple made of glass, filled with beautiful art and shows of wealth.

He gives examples of the stories of Demophon of Athens and Phyllis, Achilles and Breseyda, Paris and Aenone, Jason and Hypsipyle, and later Medea, Hercules and Dyanira, and finally Theseus and Ariadne.

The eagle explains that he is a servant of Jove, who seeks to reward Chaucer for his unrewarded devotion to Venus and Cupid by sending him to the titular House of the goddess Fame, who hears all that happens in the world.

The concept of the natural abode was an explanation for how gravity functions: a stone dropped from any height will fall down to reach the ground, smoke will rise into the air, and rivers always lead to the sea.

The House of Fame is built atop a massive rock that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be ice inscribed with the names of the famous.

He spends some time listening to all he can, all the lies and all the truth, but then the crowd falls silent at the approach of an unnamed man who Chaucer believes to be of "great authority".

The House of Fame is held up by a number of large columns, and standing atop them are a number of famous poets and scholars, who carry the fame of their most prominent stories on their shoulders: The poem marks the beginning of Chaucer's Italian-influenced period, echoing the works of Boccaccio, Ovid, Virgil's Aeneid, and Dante's Divine Comedy.

At the end of the work, the "man of greet auctoritee" who reports tidings of love has been interpreted as a reference to either the wedding of Richard II and Anne, or the betrothal of Philippa of Lancaster and John I of Portugal, but Chaucer's typically irreverent treatment of great events makes this difficult to confirm.

As with several of Chaucer's other works, The House of Fame is apparently unfinished—although whether the ending was indeed left incomplete, has been lost, or is a deliberate rhetorical device, is uncertain.

The poem contains the earliest known uses in the English language of the terms galaxy and Milky Way: See yonder, lo, the Galaxyë Which men clepeth the Milky Wey, For hit is whyt.In 1609, Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones appropriated the image of "The House of Fame" for their "Masque of Queenes" commissioned by Anne of Denmark, James VI and I's queen consort, who performed in the masque.