OHN BUNYAN was born in 1628 at Elstow near Bedford, the son of a brazier. Between 1644 and 1647 he served in the Parliamentary army; returning to Elstow to follow his father's trade, he underwent a deep spiritual crisis that lasted for several years. In about 1653 he joined an independent church in Bedford and before long began to preach and to publish polemical and doctrinal religious works. In 1660, following the Restoration, he was arrested and, on his refusal to stop preaching, was held in Bedford gaol for the next twelve years. While in prison, he published several books, the most important being his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), and also began to write The Pilgrim's Progress (1678). On his release from prison in 1672 Bunyan became pastor of the Bedford congregation and the remaining years of his life were spent preaching and writing. The best-known of his later works are The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), The Holy War (1682) and the second part of The Pilgrim's Progress (1684) He died in 1688 and was buried in Bunhill Fields.

• Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

  Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, written during this imprisonment, is the spiritual autobiography of Bunyan, the traveling tinker who became the eminent preacher and author.

  
  
• The Holy War

  John Bunyan wrote this book sometime during the first six years of his incarceration in Bedford Prison. It was first published six years before John Bunyan's death.

  
  
• Pilgrim's Progress

  Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, in two parts, of which the first appeared at London in 1678, begun during his imprisonment in 1676; the second in 1684. An allegory of Christian's journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, it is written in a prose that unites biblical eloquence with the clarity of common speech, and is the most successful allegory ever written. It is indeed commonly translated by Protestant missionaries after the Bible. It is this read in all literary languages and is a worldclassic.

  
  
• The Life and Death of Mr. Badman

  The Life and Death of Mr Badman was published by John Bunyan in 1680, two years after the First Edition of the First Part of The Pilgrim's Progress. In the opening sentence of his preface he tells us it was intended by him as the counterpart or companion picture to the Allegory.

  
  
• The Life of John Bunyan

  The Life of John Bunyan, by Edmund Venables