The Pilgrim's Progress - Bunyan, John

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Résumé :
John Bunyan was a man who felt, above all else, the need to preach the word of God. However during 17th century England it was illegal to preach outside the auspices of the Church of England. His failure to obey this law would land him in the Bedfordshire county jail twice, first for a period of twelve years, and then later for a period of six months. Bunyan could have avoided this harsh sentence if he had simply promised not to continue his preaching, however his faith would not allow him to do so. It was during this incarceration that he would begin composition of The Pilgrim's Progress, a work that has come to be regarded as one of the most important works of religious English literature. First published in 1678, The Pilgrim's Progress is a Christian allegory in the same vein of many such works of Bunyan's time. It concerns the travel of an everyman named Christian who travels from his home, The City of Destruction, to The Celestial City atop Mount Zion. The City of Destruction is a parallel for this world and The Celestial City for the next. In this characterization the journey of Christian can be seen as the quest of man to escape the burden of Earthly sin and find salvation for his soul in heaven. This edition contains both the first and second parts of The Pilgrim's Progress, includes an introduction by Charles S. Baldwin, and is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Biographie:
John Bunyan (/?b?nj?n/; baptised November 30, 1628 - August 31, 1688) was an English writer and Puritan preacher best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress. In addition to The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan wrote nearly sixty titles, many of them expanded sermons. Bunyan came from the village of Elstow, near Bedford. He had some schooling and at the age of sixteen joined the Parliamentary Army during the first stage of the English Civil War. After three years in the army he returned to Elstow and took up the trade of tinker, which he had learned from his father. He became interested in religion after his marriage, attending first the parish church and then joining the Bedford Meeting, a nonconformist group in Bedford, and becoming a preacher. After the restoration of the monarch, when the freedom of nonconformists was curtailed, Bunyan was arrested and spent the next twelve years in jail as he refused to give up preaching. During this time he wrote a spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and began work on his most famous book, The Pilgrim's Progress, which was not published until some years after his release. Bunyan's later years, in spite of another shorter term of imprisonment, were spent in relative comfort as a popular author and preacher, and pastor of the Bedford Meeting. He died aged 59 after falling ill on a journey to London and is buried in Bunhill Fields. The Pilgrim's Progress became one of the most published books in the English language; 1,300 editions having been printed by 1938, 250 years after the author's death. 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).