Pilgrim's Progress, The The

The Pilgrim's Progress is a 1678 Christian allegory written by the Puritan preacher John Bunyan. Begun while Bunyan served a 12-year jail sentence for his nonconformist preaching, the novel unfolds over two parts, one concerning Christian, and the other his wife Christiana and their sons. Both concern the central characters’ ordeals in traveling from the worldly to the sublime, and are filled with allegorical characters with names like Hypocrisy and Prudence, and places like Plain Ease, and Doubting Castle. Considered one of the most significant works of religious English literature, it has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print.