The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan (1890s)

S$143.00

The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan (1890s)

S$143.00

Title: The Pilgrim’s Progress

Author: John Bunyan, Frederick Barnard (illus), J. D. Linton (illus), W. Small (illus)

Publisher S. W. Partridge and Co., London. No date. 38th thousand. Most likely circa 1880s/90s.

Condition: Hardcover, decorative cloth. Good. Covers very bright, with very slight rubbing to edge of spine and corners. Binding sagging slightly. Endpapers and fly leaves tanned. Very slight foxing to book, and one or two tiny annotations in pencil. Profusely illustrated with in-text engravings and black-and-white plates, 62 in all. A large book, measuring approximately 10.5″x8″. Overseas shipping will cost extra.

The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan and published in February, 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature,has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print.Bunyan began his work while in the Bedfordshire county gaol for violations of the Conventicle Act, which prohibited the holding of religious services outside the auspices of the established Church of England. Early Bunyan scholars like John Brown believed The Pilgrim’s Progress was begun in Bunyan’s second shorter imprisonment for six months in 1675,but more recent scholars like Roger Sharrock believe that it was begun during Bunyan’s initial, more lengthy imprisonment from 1660–72 right after he had written his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.

The English text comprises 108,260 words and is divided into two parts, each reading as a continuous narrative with no chapter divisions. The first part was completed in 1677 and entered into the stationers’ register on 22 December 1677. It was licensed and entered in the “Term Catalogue” on 18 February 1678, which is looked upon as the date of first publication. After the first edition of the first part in 1678, an expanded edition, with additions written after Bunyan was freed, appeared in 1679. The Second Part appeared in 1684. There were eleven editions of the first part in John Bunyan’s lifetime, published in successive years from 1678 to 1685 and in 1688, and there were two editions of the second part, published in 1684 and 1686.

John Bunyan (1628 – 1688) was an English Christian writer and preacher. He is the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, arguably the most famous published Christian allegory. In addition to The Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan wrote nearly sixty titles, many of them expanded sermons.

Bunyan faced legal challenges to fulfilling his calling but did not make any concessions to the authorities. As a dissenter who was not ordained in the Church of England he was unlicensed to preach. He preferred to face and endure twelve years of imprisonment at great sacrifice to himself and his family, rather than resign himself to giving up preaching. Although he has been described both as a Baptist and as a Puritan, he himself preferred to be described simply as a Christian.

He is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the United States Episcopal Church on 29 August. Some other Churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the Anglican Church of Australia, honour him on the day of his death (31 August) together with Aidan of Lindisfarne.