John Bunyan 
Pilgrim’s Progress 

The classic religious allegory by the seventeenth-century English author—one of the most significant works of theological fiction ever written.   Largely written while John Bunyan was imprisoned for offenses against the Conventicle Act of 1664, which prohibited the holding of religious services outside the auspices of the Church of England, The Pilgrim’s Progress is the author’s dream of the trials and temptations a man named Christian encounters on his journey to the Celestial City. Traveling along a road filled with spiritual obstacles, Christian seeks to rid himself of the burden of his sins. “In Hollywood terms, the novel has a perfect ‘arc.’ It also contains a cast of unforgettable characters, from Mr Worldly Wiseman to Lord Hategood, Mr Stand-fast and Mr Valiant-for-Truth. . . . The Pilgrim’s Progress is the ultimate English classic, a book that has been continuously in print, from its first publication to the present day, in an extraordinary number of editions. 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 diverse as William Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Mark Twain, CS Lewis, John Steinbeck and even Enid Blyton.” —The Guardian, “The 100 Best Novels”