Pilgrim's Progress

"As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to sleep: And as I slept I dremed a Dream."

So begins one of the best-loved and most widely read books in English literature. An acknowledged classic of the heroic Puritan tradition, and a founding text in the development of the English novel, The Pilgrim's Progress has inspired readers for over three centuries. The story of Christian, whose pilgrimage takes him through the Slough of Despond, Vanity Fair, and the Delectable Mountains, is full of danger and adventure. Together with his trusty companions, Faithful and Hopeful, he encounters many enemies before finally arriving at the Celestial City.

Bunyan's own experience of religious persecution informs his story, and its qualities of psychological realism, the beauty and simplicity of his prose combine to create a book whose appeal is universal. This edition includes the illustrations that appeared with the book in Bunyan's lifetime, giving a sense of its impact on contemporary readers.

With original illustrations
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by W. R. Owens

Features

• The only complete text in paperback, including all the marginal notes of the original, in original spelling.
• The first edition to include all the original illustrations to appear in editions printed in Bunyan's lifetime, thus giving a unique sense of the experience of the book for its contemporary readers.
• The new introduction is written in a clear, accessible style with sections on Bunyan's life and times; allegory; the Bible; Literature and Theology; social satire and endurance under persecution.
• Includes a new chronology of Bunyan's life and times.
• New bibliography.
• New and expanded explanatory notes, and a separate glossary of unfamiliar words.
• Full index.

John Bunyan (1628–88) was born at Elstow, near Bedford...After leaving the army in 1647, he underwent a prolonged and agonizing spiritual crisis. Following his religious conversion he joined an Independent church in Bedford, and before long began to preach. This led, in 1656, to the beginning of a literary career in the course of which he would publish some sixty works of controversial, expository, and practical divinity, marked by an uncompromising zeal and trenchant directness of style....

About the Editor

W. R. Owens is Professor of English Literature at the Open University.