Bunyan, John

English writer, author of The Pilgrim's Progress (first part 1678, second part 1684), one of the best-known English religious allegories (a symbolic story with meaning beyond its literal reading).

Bunyan was born in Elstow, near Bedford. At 16, he was drafted into the Parliamentary army to fight in the Civil War, probably his first experience of stern and impassioned Puritanism. In 1649 he married his first wife, Margaret Bentley, who introduced him to religious work. A Baptist, he was imprisoned in Bedford from 1660 until 1672 for unlicensed preaching and wrote Grace Abounding in 1666, which describes his early spiritual life. He started to write The Pilgrim's Progress during a second jail sentence from 1676 until 1677. Written in straightforward language with fervour and imagination, it achieved immediate popularity and was highly influential.