Bunyan

Bunyan, John, was born in 1628 at Elstow, near Bedford. His father was a tinker, and Bunyan himself followed the same craft, serving as a soldier during the Civil war. Thereafter he became impressed with the sense of the importance of religion, and began to preach in the villages round about Bedford. In 1656 appeared his first book, which was an attack upon the Quakers, and was entitled Some Gospel Truths Opened. In 1660 he was arrested while preaching in a hamlet near Ampthill, thrown into prison, and detained there until 1672, during which time he wrote Profitable Meditations, The Holy City, The Resurrection of the Dead, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and other works. Liberated under the Declaration of Indulgence, he became parson of the church to which he belonged, but in 1675 was again sent to prison for six months under the Conventicle Act. It was during this period of his incarceration that he produced the first part of the immortal allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress. Other of his works that followed were Life and Death of Mr. Badman, 1680, and Holy War, 1682. After having ministered to the Bedford congregation for sixteen years, he died in London in 1688, and was buried in Bunhill Fields.