About author John Bunyan
John Bunyan, (1628-88), British author and preacher, born in Elstow, near Bedford. He served an apprenticeship as a tinker, and at about the age of seventeen, during the British Civil War, fought in the Parliamentary Army. About 1648 he married a member of one of the numerous Puritan sects of his day, and in 1653 joined her church and became one of its leaders. The couple settled (1655) in Beadford, where John Bunyan’s wife died soon afterward. There John Bunyan began to give sermons as a lay preacher. During the late 1650,s he became one of the most popular preachers of the period, speaking to large audiences drawn from all the Puritan sects. After the Restoration, however, it was declared illegal to conduct divine service except in accordance with the forms of the Established Church. John Bunyan, who persisted in his irregular preaching, was confined in Beadford county jail for twelve years (1660-72); although during part of this time he was allowed a large degree of freedom and was able to support his family by making tagged laces. While in prison, John Bunyan’s library consisted of the Bible and the Book of Martyrs by the English theologian John Foxe. Studying the content and literary style of these works, John Bunyan began to write religious tracts and pamphlets. Before his release he wrote the first of his major works, the spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666). In 1675 John Bunyan was again imprisoned, for a period of six months, and at that time he probably wrote the major part of his masterpiece, The Pilgrims Progress, an allegory in prose (first part published 1678; second, 1684). Ten editions of this great work, with additions and modifications, were printed during John Bunyan’s lifetime, and it eventually became the most widely read of all books in English after the Bible. |
