Imagine a time when simply sharing your beliefs could land you in prison. That was the reality for John Bunyan, an English preacher who, while unjustly locked away for his convictions, began to write a story that would echo through the ages. This wasn’t just any book; it was The Pilgrim’s Progress, a powerful narrative born from a jail cell in 1676. Soon, this remarkable tale of faith, struggle, and discovery made its way across the ocean, arriving on the shores of the New World, ready to inspire generations of Americans seeking hope and truth.
From its humble beginnings, The Pilgrim’s Progress quickly became an essential part of American life and classic literature, so much so that familiarity with this spiritual allegory was once considered the hallmark of a “good American.” Beloved by literary giants like Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe, its timeless journey of Christian facing trials and seeking deliverance resonated deeply across our nation’s history. Join Our American Stories as we explore John Bunyan’s enduring classic, a testament to courage, perseverance, and the universal quest for meaning that continues to captivate hearts and minds today.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: And we continue with Our American Stories. John Bunyan was a preacher in Bedford, England. He’s the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, which he wrote in 1676.
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Speaker 2: In prison for preaching.
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Speaker 1: Without a license. This book quickly found its way onto ships that carried it
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Speaker 2: to the New World in America.
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Speaker 1: The book was so popular that it was said familiarity with the book was considered the mark of
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Speaker 2: being a good American.
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Speaker 1: Louisa May Alcott’s famous novel Little Women mentions that the sisters
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Speaker 2: often read the book.
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Speaker 1: Harriet Beecher Stowe considered it to be her favorite book apart from the Bible, and often read and taught it to her children. With that, let’s take a listen to the story of The Pilgrim’s Progress.
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Speaker 3: In the year 1676, a poor tinker named John Bunyan was imprisoned in Bedford Jail.
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Speaker 4: While he was there, he
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Speaker 5: started to write one of the most famous books in the English language. And everything is told as if it happened in a dream.
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Speaker 6: “I dreamed,” he says, “that I saw a man with a book in his hand and a great burden on his back as he read the book.”
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Speaker 5: He began to weep. Then, in a lamentable voice, he cried out,
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Speaker 4: “What shall I do to be saved?”
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Speaker 5: For he lived in the City of Destruction, which he learnt from his book, was doomed to be burnt with fire from Heaven, and everyone who lived there would perish in the flames.
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Speaker 4: The Pilgrim’s Progress is a spiritual, truly allegory that follows the path of Christian and every man. Character weighed down by his burden of sin, he leaves the City of Destruction and learns that nothing can remove his burden other than the cross of Christ. Be over three centuries old. Novel begins behind bars. Its author, John Bunyan, opens with a sentence of luminous simplicity that has the haunting compulsion of the hook in a great melody.
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Speaker 7: “As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep.”
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Speaker 5: “And as I slept, I dreamed, agreed.”
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Speaker 4: A den is a prison. You see, Charles the Second, the King of England, passed the law forbidding people to preach unless they had a license from the state. But you couldn’t get a license unless you agreed with the tax-supported Anglican Church. Bunyan certainly didn’t. On one such occasion, he was asked to stop preaching, and he would be set free. He replied, “If you release me today, I will preach tomorrow.” Those now-famous words led to a nearly twelve-year imprisonment for unlawful preaching. It was during this time that he began to pen his classic work. Published in February of 1678, it quickly became one of the most popular stories of all time. Over one hundred thousand copies were sold within his lifetime alone, and today, with two hundred fifty million copies sold, it is one of the most widespread books in existence. It is a book every American had been exposed to until the last few decades. It has been translated into over two hundred languages, and it has never been out of print. As with everything in the story, there is no hiding the truth about who the characters are and what they want with the protagonist. For example, Christian encounters people named Piety, Simple, Sloth, Presumption, Faithful, Talkative, Crafty, or Little-Faith, and the readers see each character live up to its name, and throughout the story, Christian is being overcome by his burden of sin, which is literally a massive, santicized pack on his back that he is incapable of delivering himself from.
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Speaker 7: Pilgrim continued upon his way as the enemy of his soul increased his efforts against the traveler.
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Speaker 4: On his way to the Celestial City, Christian is diverted by the secular ethics of Mister Worldly-Wiseman.
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Speaker 8: “How rude of me! My name is Wiseman, Worldly-Wiseman. You, of course, will have heard of my family. We are high-stuck. We are, if I do say so, oh, yes, yes. Ask us anything, anything you like, and you will find the answer.”
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Speaker 4: Who urges him to lead a practical, happy existence apart from
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Speaker 5: Christ, Evangelist.
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Speaker 8: “Dullergs the whole lot of them, they are, Pilgrim. Dullerg’s dullrds his way out of foolishness.”
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Speaker 4: He instead encourages Christian: “I want to help you to seek deliverance from his burden through law and rule-keeping. I perceive you are…”
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Speaker 8: “…a religious man, which is good, good, very good. The world needs more religious people, it does, Pilgrim, he does.”
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Speaker 4: With the help of Mister Legality and his son Civility from the Village of Morality.
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Speaker 8: “Mister Legality will show you how to be rid of that burden of yours.”
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Speaker 4: Evangelist meets the wayward Christian and shows him that Mister Worldly-Wiseman, Mister Legality, and his son Civility are false guides, descended from slaves who look to enslave other would-be pilgrims.
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Speaker 7: “When Christians unto carnal men give ear, out of their way they go and pay for it dear. For Master Worldly-Wiseman can but show as saint the way to bondage and to woe.”
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Speaker 4: Then, as Christian walks along the Wall of Salvation, he sees Christ’s tomb and cross. At this vision, his burden falls to the ground. The journey continues along a road filled with monsters and spiritual terrors. Christian confronts such emblematic characters as Giant Despair, Ignorance, and the demons of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, often disguised as something that would help him. Evil continues to accompany Christian on his journey, but friends Hopeful and Faithful also join him. The two enter the wicked town of Vanity and visit its famous fair called Vanity Fair, which lasts year-round.
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Speaker 5: Indeed, there are stores where every foolish
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Speaker 3: trifle in the world is up for sale. In addition, you could buy time, cloths, and honors and preferment to high office, and vain pleasures and emptied delights of every kind. It is an institution of long standing, artfully set up by the Prince of the Demons, Beels-above himself, in a place through which all who are pilgrims and strangers in this world must pass when going to the Celestial City. Many, it is feared, get no further on their way.
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Speaker 4: They resist temptation and are mocked by the townspeople.
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Speaker 6: “Why aren’t you buying our merchandise? Buy, buy, buy!”
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Speaker 4: Eventually, the citizens of Vanity imprison Christian and Faithful for mocking their local religion. Faithful defends himself at his trial and is executed, rising to Heaven after death. But Christian escapes and continues his journey with his new companion, Hopeful. They vanquish many enemies before arriving at the Celestial City. With the line that still reverberates through the English literary tradition: “So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.” There’s no book in English apart from the Bible to equal Bunyan’s masterpiece for the range of its readership or its influence on writers as divers as William Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Nathaniel Hawthorne, E. E. Cummings, Mark Twain, C. S. Lewis, John Steinbeck, and even Enid Blyton. Huckleberry Finn speaks for many readers when recalling his Mississippi education, he says:
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Speaker 9: “There were some books, too, piled up perfectly exact on each corner of the table. One was a big family Bible full of pictures. One was Pilgrim’s Progress, about a man that left his family. It didn’t say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough.”
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Speaker 4: In Hollywood terms, the novel has a perfect arc. While Pilgrim’s Progress charts the arc of the Christian journey, it’s not limited to the Christian experience. Truly, the brilliance of John Bunyan is realized in his astute understanding and the following portrayal of the human journey and condition as seen through Christian’s eyes. Bunyan had a wonderful ear for them. The rhythms of colloquial speech and his allegorical characters come to life in dialogue that never fails to advance the narrative. The narrative story is one thing. The simple clarity and beauty of Bunyan’s prose is something else. Braided together, style and content unite to make The Pilgrim’s Progress a timeless classic.
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Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And what a story you heard about Pilgrim’s Progress. Until thirty years or so ago, this was a staple in every American home.
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Speaker 2: I leave it to you to judge why that might be so.
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Speaker 1: The story of Pilgrim’s Progress here on Our American Stories.
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