This English writer and preacher was jailed in 1675 for his non-conformist religious preachings. During his six months in Bedford County jail, he wrote much of his religious allegory Pilgrim’s Progress. It was published in two parts in 1678 and 1684.

He began the work in his first period of imprisonment, and probably finished it during the second. The earliest edition in which the two parts combined in one volume came in 1728.

A third part falsely attributed to Bunyan appeared in 1693, and was reprinted as late as 1852. Its full title is The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come.

The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the most widely known allegories ever written, and has been extensively translated. It is the first thing after The Bible- according to the Protestant missionaries.