22 Feb John Bunyan

John Bunyan’s name is eternally linked to his most famous work, The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). It was an immediate success and is among the most widely published books in English. Born in 1628 in Elstow, near Bedford (50 miles north of London), Bunyan underwent a conversion in his twenties, joined a nonconformist church and began preaching. Following the Civil War (1642-51), he found himself on the wrong side of the law in a time when the rights of nonconformists were severely restricted. Because he refused to give up preaching, he was tried and sent to Bedford County Jail (1661-72).

Bunyan died in 1688 and is buried in London’s Bunhill Fields. His grave is embellished with an elaborate recumbent statue. There’s also a statue in an alcove of the Baptist Church House on Southampton Row, plus memorial windows in Westminster Abbey and Southwark Cathedral. Back in Bedford there’s a huge bronze statue in front of the Bunyan Museum, facing the site of Bunyan’s imprisonment. In the Bunyan Meeting Free Church next door there’s a memorial window: there’s another in nearby Elstow Abbey.