Popular Literature
When literary critics decide that a book is not worthy of their notice they expect the public to follow their lead, but ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ was different.
1678
King Charles II 1649-1685
A detail from ‘Old Pilgrim’ by Italian artist Pietro Bellotti (1625-1700). The appeal of The Pilgrim’s Progress was so widespread that it became the second most popular Christian book in the world after the Bible, and has never been out of print. In some ways this is surprising. Bunyan himself was not a unifying figure: he managed to offend just about everyone from Cromwell’s presbyterians to the Quakers. But his own peculiar brand of Calvinism does not thrust itself upon the reader; it would almost impossible to reconstruct his beliefs or the beliefs of any seventeenth-century English church from The Pilgrim’s Progress alone. But it would be very easy to reconstruct the message of the Apostles.
Introduction
In 1672, Charles II relaxed the Conventicle Act that had imprisoned preachers who were not members of the Church of England. The authorities duly released John Bunyan (1628-88) from Bedford gaol, and at once he returned to preaching. Six years later he published ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, an immensely popular allegory of the Christian life for which literary experts had nothing but scorn.
abridged
THE fame of Bunyan during his life, and during the century which followed his death, was indeed great, but was almost entirely confined to religious families of the middle and lower classes. Very seldom was he during that time mentioned with respect by any writer of great literary eminence.
It is a significant circumstance that, till a recent period, all the numerous editions of the Pilgrim’s Progress* were evidently meant for the cottage and the servants’ hall. The paper, the printing, the plates, were all of the meanest description. In general, when the educated minority and the common people differ about the merit of a book, the opinion of the educated minority finally prevails. The Pilgrim’s Progress is perhaps the only book about which, after the lapse of a hundred years, the educated minority has come over to the opinion of the common people.*
abridged
Abridged from ‘Life of John Bunyan’ (1914) by Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859).
* Available to read online at the Internet Archive: see The Pilgrim’s Progress (1909). Bunyan’s story was first published in 1678.
* Not entirely. In 1684, Bunyan published an expanded edition which followed the fortunes of Christian’s family, who had refused to follow him on his journey. The educated minority, however, put its foot down and judged the second part to be vastly inferior to the first, and the common people should be aware that many editions of The Pilgrim’s Progress spare them the embarrassment of enjoying the second part by omitting it altogether. Among many other sad losses, this omission deprives us of the moving farewell of Mr Valiant-for-truth, so beautifully woven into the closing scenes of Mr Standfast by John Buchan: see The Summons Comes for Mr Standfast.
