What is The Pilgrim’s Progress?
John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, was said to have been started while he was in prison for his faith. The first part was published on 18th February 1678. Since then, it has travelled to almost every part of the world.
It tells the story of a journey from the ‘City of Destruction’ to the ‘Celestial City’. On the way, ‘Christian’ has to face up to roaring lions and battle with giants and fiends. He sets out carrying a great burden of sin on his back, which only falls away when he comes to the Cross of Jesus. And he meets many other people on the journey, with fantastical names, like ‘Worldly Wiseman’ who tries to lead him astray, and ‘Hopeful’, who encourages him on the journey.
Why are people still reading The Pilgrim’s Progress?
The book was an immediate ‘best-seller’! By the time John Bunyan died (in 1688), there were already ten editions in English, five in Dutch, one in French, and one in Welsh.
In the seventeenth century, it was taken to the so-called ‘New World’ by pilgrims fleeing persecution in Britain. In the eighteenth century, many poor households could afford only two books, which they treasured and read carefully: The Bible and The Pilgrim’s Progress.
By the nineteenth century, Britain, among other nations, was taking the Christian message out into all the world. The Pilgrim’s Progress became one of the great Missionary texts, often used alongside the Bible, to convey the story of salvation. Coming into the twentieth century, The Pilgrim’s Progress became a text of dissent, inspiring and giving confidence to struggling communities in turbulent times.
The Pilgrim’s Progress Today
In our own times, The Pilgrim’s Progress has appeared as an opera, numerous plays, films, documentaries, even board games, jigsaws, and video games. New versions are still being published and new media being produced.
The Pilgrim’s Progress has inspired people from around the world, helping them with their own journeys, and still brings people to Bedford and the landscape that inspired Bunyan.
The Pilgrim’s Progress has been translated into nearly 300 languages, and The John Bunyan Library housed in Bunyan Meeting has over 250 in its amazing collection. John Bunyan wrote over 50 other books, including treatises, poems and allegories.