Early Modern English V — the 17th century (ii)

Abstract

John Bunyan (1628–1688) was the son of a Bedfordshire brass-worker, and followed his father’s trade after learning to read and write in the village school at Elstow. He served in the Parlia-mentary army during the Civil War in the 1640s, and joined a Nonconformist church in Bedford in 1653 and preached there. His first writings were against George Fox and the Quakers. But he too came into conflict with the authorities in 1660 for preaching without a licence, and spent twelve years in Bedford jail, during which time he wrote nine books. In 1672 he returned to the same church, and was again imprisoned for a short time in 1676, when he finished the first part of The Pilgrims Progress. The book was published in 1678, and a second part in 1684.