The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is
to Come is a 1678 Christian allegory written by
John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most
significant works of religious English literature, has
been translated into more than 200 languages, and has
never been out of print. It has also been cited as the
first novel written in English.
Bunyan began his work while in the Bedfordshire county
prison for violations of the Conventicle Act, which
prohibited the holding of religious services outside the
auspices of the established Church of England. Early
Bunyan scholars such as John Brown believed The
Pilgrim's Progress was begun in Bunyan's second, shorter
imprisonment for six months in 1675, but more recent
scholars such as Roger Sharrock believe that it was
begun during Bunyan's initial, more lengthy imprisonment
from 1660 to 1672 right after he had written his
spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of
Sinners.
The English text comprises 108,260 words and is divided
into two parts, each reading as a continuous narrative
with no chapter divisions. The first part was completed
in 1677 and entered into the Stationers' Register on 22
December 1677. It was licensed and entered in the "Term
Catalogue" on 18 February 1678, which is looked upon as
the date of first publication. After the first edition
of the first part in 1678, an expanded edition, with
additions written after Bunyan was freed, appeared in
1679. The Second Part appeared in 1684. There were
eleven editions of the first part in John Bunyan's
lifetime, published in successive years from 1678 to
1685 and in 1688, and there were two editions of the
second part, published in 1684 and 1686.
John Bunyan (November 1628
– 31 August 1688) was an English writer and Puritan
preacher best remembered as the author of the Christian
allegory The Pilgrim's Progress. In addition to
The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan wrote nearly sixty
titles, many of them expanded sermons.
Bunyan came from the village of Elstow, near Bedford. He
had some schooling and at the age of sixteen joined the
Parliamentary army during the first stage of the English
Civil War. After three years in the army he returned to
Elstow and took up the trade of tinker, which he had
learned from his father. He became interested in
religion after his marriage, attending first the parish
church and then joining the Bedford Meeting, a
nonconformist group in Bedford, and becoming a preacher.
After the restoration of the monarch, when the freedom
of nonconformists was curtailed, Bunyan was arrested and
spent the next twelve years in jail as he refused to
give up preaching. During this time he wrote a spiritual
autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,
and began work on his most famous book, The Pilgrim's
Progress, which was not published until some years after
his release.
Bunyan's later years, in spite of another shorter term
of imprisonment, were spent in relative comfort as a
popular author and preacher, and pastor of the Bedford
Meeting. He died aged 59 after falling ill on a journey
to London and is buried in Bunhill Fields. The Pilgrim's
Progress became one of the most published books in the
English language; 1,300 editions having been printed by
1938, 250 years after the author's death.
He is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser
Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of
the United States Episcopal Church on 29 August. Some
other churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the
Anglican Church of Australia, honour him on the day of
his death (31 August).
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