The Life of John Bunyan

The biography traces the subject's life from humble Bedfordshire origins through family background and early trade to a dramatic religious awakening, active involvement with nonconformist congregations, arrest and repeated imprisonments for unauthorized preaching, and prolific authorship of devotional works including a widely read allegorical pilgrimage. It places personal struggles and pastoral labors against the backdrop of seventeenth-century religious and political turmoil, outlines characteristic plain and imaginative prose that made his allegory accessible, and follows later years of ministry, publication activity, and the lasting presence of his devotional voice in English religious literature.