THE WORLD'S CLASSICS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

by

JOHN BUNYAN

Edited with an Introduction by N.H. Keeble

The Pilgrim's Progress (Part I 1678/Part II 1684) holds a unique place in the history of English literature. No other seventeenth-• century work except the King James Bible, nothing from the pen of a writer of Bunyan's social class in any period, and no other Puritan work, or, indeed, committed Christian work of any persuasion, has enjoyed such an extensive readership.

The pilgrim Christian, Mr Worldly Wiseman, Giant Despair, Hopeful, and Ignorance are engaged in a powerful drama set against a solidly realistic background of town and country.

Bunyan captures the speech of ordinary people as accurately as he depicts their behaviour and appearance and as firmly as he realized their inner emotional and spiritual life. The tale is related in language remarkable for its beauty and simplicity - a style which exerted an enormous influence on English prose for more than two centuries - and is spiced with Bunyan's acute and satirical perceptions of the vanity and hypocrisy of his own society.

ISBN 0-19-281607-1

This edition first published 1984 as a World's Classics paperback

Reprinted 1986

Good condition

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-88) was born at Elstow, near Bed-ford, the eldest son of a tinker. His schooling was slight In 1644 he was mustered in the Parliamentarian army and stationed at Newport Pagnell. During the early 1650s h underwent the prolonged spiritual crisis he later graphically recorded in one of the classics of Puritan spirituality, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666). Following his conversion he joined the Bedford Baptist church, and the congregation quickly recognized his gift for preaching. 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, a trenchant directness of style and a particular concern for the spiritual welfare of common people. During the twelve-year imprisonment for nonconformity which followed the Restoration (1660-72), writing became the chief means by which to fulfil his vocation. It was not, however, until the publication in 1678 of The Pilgrim's Progress that his genius declared itself. The imaginative persuasiveness and realistic authenticity of this allegory have earned for it an unprecedently extensive readership and for its author his unique place in literary history. It was followed in 1680 by its sequel, The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, by the elaborate multi-level allegory The Holy War in 1682 and by Part Il of The Pilgrim's Progress in 1684, works which substantiate Bunyan's claim to be the founder of the English novel.

N. H. KeeBLe lectures in English at the University of Stirling. He has edited J. M. Lloyd Thomas's abridgement of The Autobiography of Richard Baxter (1974) and pub lished Richard Baxter: Puritan Man of Letters (Oxford,

1982) as well as introductory guides to Romeo and Juliet and Richard II (1980) and a number of articles on late medieval, Renaissance and seventeenth-century English

literature.

He is currently working on a study of the

literary culture of nonconformity 1660-1702.