by Steve Newman

Created on: October 05, 2010   Last Updated: October 06, 2010

Today John Bunyan is a writer – like Milton – that many people will have heard of but not read. His masterpiece, The Pilgrim's Progress, will also be familiar, with the story and message of this important piece of literature a deeply integrated part of our personal psyche, which is why, when we are re-acquainted with the famous story of a man's journey in search of God we find it so familiar, moving, and utterly true, and not a little scary. 

 John Bunyan was born, in 1628, into a very poor peasant family in the village of Elstow, just a few miles from the market and administrative town of Bedford, and as one historian has told us, Bunyan:

 “...was in no sense a religious child, and although from early boyhood he was wracked with a sense of guilt and haunted by fears of terrible retribution, in his youth he was much given to oaths and bad language, and had little regard for such reading of the Bible.”

Although the particular historian quoted above doesn't tell us why Bunyan was wracked with a sense of guilt (he may have been beaten at home for laziness) there can be no doubt – as he suggests – that Bunyan became much more interested in telling lewd jokes, singing raucous ballads, and propping-up the bar of the nearest ale house, in other words he was easily tempted away from the narrow path, and, like Shakespeare, something of a loud mouth and often in trouble with the authorities. So when Bunyan has his hero, Christian, constantly being told not to be tempted the Elstow writer was reminding himself, and informing us, how easy it was, and is, to slip off the narrow path into the evil pleasure park that is Vanity Fair.

And like many a man before and after, Bunyan, aged twenty, was saved by a good wife, who came from a religious background ( and good wives are often, in the first instance, attracted to bad men), who suggested he might like to read some of her father's books. And as a young man drawn to a good historical tale he read again and again Arthur Dent's, The Plaine Mans Path-way to Heaven, which undoubtedly became a huge source of material for The Pilgrim's Progress. Bunyan quickly underwent a religious conversion, joining a local Baptist group, and was soon preaching around Bedfordshire and publishing Christian tracts.

The writer Bunyan was now fired-up and turning over thought after thought in his overcrowded head about a man's journey in search of God. But first there was a civil war to fight. Bunyan volunteered for the Parliamentarian side, which gave him even more insights into a man's character, especially when under threat of death. All of this, and more, would go into The Pilgrim's Progress.

After the death of Oliver Cromwell, and the restoration of the monarchy, Bunyan (after holding several unlawful meetings, where he spoke against Charles II) was thrown into Bedford Gaol, where, during a harsh twelve-year sentence, he began to write The Pilgrims Progress, the first part of which was published in 1678, with the second part published in 1684.

And although Bunyan had little formal education, he read widely and absorbed, like Walt Whitman some 300 years later, the language and style of the Bible, creating set pieces, places and characters that have become an important part of our literary and Christian heritage.

John Bunyan died on a preaching visit to London in 1688.

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